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The year I first went unshaven
the touch of his flesh seemed unthinkable
So all I had was
Solitude
A table
A dark night
Unlimited pages
And a four color pen
Red then Blue
Black then Green My teenage job dispatching taxis
to demanding winter tourists
left me plenty of time to smolder and spark
my secret journal a new and mysterious obsession
The first hundred pages an ordeal
breaking through frozen ground
on those winter nights
But from there
the digging got easier My young love grew that fall
blossomed
introduced me to the infinite
and left
me asking
and now what? I found new love
stronger
more real, true love
that left
me asking
is that all there is? Scratching out a second hundred pages
that winter was
cause for celebration A quarter century and more later
the number in that page corner
is quickly nearing
four thousand Absolutely everything
has changed
of course
The beard I dreamed of
has come, grown long
and frosted Decades through which
my hair has reached
my waist
been shorn to the skull
and now grows long again
sparser, gray and spotty Everything has changed
yet here I sit
two thousand miles
and four thousand pages from where it all began
and still all I have is
Solitude
A table
A dark night
Unlimited pages
And a four color pen
Blue then Black
Green then Red Still scratching at virgin ground
finding softer soil now
The Mayan ruin much
more fully excavated
if not
any better
understood Then as now
when rock becomes impenetrable
and my pen
can dig no deeper
I look up from my blue barred monastery
to the dark night beyond Snowy Utah winter then
Cold Montreal fall now And faces line up at the windows It is 1978, and
Brenda, Korey, Wade and Robin
press greasy noses to the cold glass
where I dispatch taxis
wave their arms
telling me to put down the shovel
and come out and play
After all life is just beginning
and I'm too young
to dig all night It is 2005, and now
Ivan, Denis, Brian and Matt
line up and make faces
into the Montreal coffee shop
where I sip 3:00 am espresso
telling me to put down the pen
the bars have closed
They are middle-aged tired
And after all I'm too old
to dig all night So I close my journal
click my pen to sleep
and rejoin my weary chosen family And I wonder
will I still be digging with this pen
in another quarter century? Perhaps at a table on the moon
and everything will have changed
my beard of snow
my skull pocked and bare
loves uncounted come and gone
and me Left with only
Solitude
A table
A dark night
Unlimited pages
And a four color pen
Black then Green
Red then Blue Scratching at near weightless soil now
the Earth hanging in the sky
and ancient friends
still behind glass
making faces
leaping high
and begging me
to come out
and play
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