ADVICE TO MYSELF AS YEARS GO BY (And trying to pay attention to that)

You have to learn to stumble
and not fall, to look as graceful as you can
when the wind blows or you lose
your sense of balance. Once you hit the ground
and can’t get up, they have you
and they’ll dance around you as if
you were a crippled worm and useless
to whatever they’re trying to do.
……
“Go easy on the sauce young lady
……
all I want is a hamburger and a beer
……
and that smile of yours which lit up the
……
mountains yesterday
……
when it was dark, and I was all alone….”

Count the steps or spaces and then
forget it all and write some platitude
you saw in a notebook by a waitress in Omaha.

After one thing or another I tell myself
these things and then, WALK ON BLINDLY
into these situations enamored of
a woman or a song, hell maybe
a summer storm sweeping the mountainside
or an easy going river where
fish are too smart to jump
and the fishermen are asleep
from beer drinking and thoughts of
the old lady at home
who loves them anyway.

I don’t know.
Do you?
Tell me now while there is still time.

Kell Robertson August 16, 2009