Strange flame of neurons firing
inside the helmet of my head, full of knowing,
sights royal, azure, robin, finely graded,
the roll and pitch of sounds, sweetness on my tongue,
memories seemingly true,
the 110 steps up to our house on Edgevale Road,
the tree I fell from when six still there
though I’m not, the gleam of Chesapeake Bay
when my family was together
driving to our rental on the shore,
shadows falling on the Taconic Parkway
going away to college in the North,
“Now you know all of me,” she said,
sitting on the yellow couch,
all held together, appearing continuous,
an assumption of the same flame in others,
behind faces and voices, unreachable,
but surely there, how the Greeks thought of spirit,
breath, escaping from the body to join air,
how the Norse of soul, fire kept burning through winter,
huge firs dragged from the forest,
my body breaking, memories blanking
but some still vivid, even increasingly so,
my self thinking of my self
as though outside somehow, imagining ending,
dust blowing through the universe, gathering
and dissolving, what it’s like when I go to sleep,
not even dark, perhaps just 95 steps, doesn’t know.
I shouldn’t forget to be grateful.