Bleeding the Words (Practicing My Trees)

by Darryl Price

I know you don’t want to see me bleeding the words together like this, not until the tee- shirt’s fully washed, finished and hung out to dry somewhere. Then it has every lucky chance of flying away on its own powerful flailing arms and becoming someone else’s lost treasure. Just not mine. That’s where the cut’s the most awful,the deepest I think. These new things keep tumbling out of my ears and putting on their oh so long glowing robes and taking their rightful places right behind me—ready to sing the life out

of the most sadly written chorus you’ve ever heard when I give them the cue. I can’t help it if someone strange thinks I can sing. I’ve opened my mouth to speak mountains and gotten clouds, to regurgitate fresh meadows and gotten factories, to moisten the heads of dolphins and gotten sand in a bottle. All these things I lay aside to put before you at some other time because they are failed attempts to say something without pretense. Why does it have to be explained any further than that? If I could I’d tie

them all up in a big blue blanket and fling them at the sopping stars hoping to watch them sink into the black cosmos like the little stones that they are. But we all know that’s impossible. Here’s two reasons. One. Because you are like a petal of exquisite hue that just so happened to fall on my head when I wasn’t looking. Two. And because I don’t believe you are a lie. Maybe I don’t care period. That could explain a few things. Nevertheless we find ourselves at a moment of beauty—it stays between us for as

long as we live and breathe. That I am sure of. But no more. Nothing else makes any sense to me. Nothing that I would invest with a soul. This map then that I place in your hands only works when you look at it—no one else will be able to read it as you do. That is its purpose. To give you alone complete access to its mystery. And if you have not the wellness to discover the center then let it go unexplored. It has been created with you in mind. Why do you think only in terms of people and places? There are

more things going on within the page than wood fibers and pulp. There’s pressure behind the ink to be sure, but that’s not to say there isn’t fire under the boiling water. Wherever you are being you the life knows its rightful heart. I don’t care if there’s proof or not, there’s feeling. We can’t always listen to their selfish, hateful nonsense. Sooner or later it’s goodbye. We have to fly. We have to try. We know we might die. But this old death has already forsaken us. We want more. And we want to be together.

Can you deny us the pleasure forever? This is the history of the world. It happens every day. It happens every minute. It’s happening now. To you. To me. To us. To the blades of grass. Will you really shoot the stalks to pieces? More will grow you know. More will come. In one form or another. They’ll raise their sons and daughters to be poets. When the daylight breaks something new is born even when the weather is at its bleakest. Come. Take my hand. Just for a moment, let us celebrate. Ah, I say, a big yes.