Suburban Odyssey
My parents settled in a suburb community on the out skirts of Philadelphia in Plymouth Township, near Plymouth Meeting. Prior to having rows upon rows of identical looking houses, the land was a farmer’s field. Our house happened to have some remaining tall trees along its border while most other houses had the obligatory tree planted in the center of its yard. The photo above shows how nature has grown up over the decades. I lived in this environment for 17 years until college when I left the area. At the time there was a vast track of undeveloped land behind our house. I loved being there every chance I could get. It was a calmer world than school, the mass culture and family life. Kids roamed this area freely. It was a real alternative.
As I grew up, (or grew down as it felt to me there), I rode my bike on its well worn trails. I’d walk my dog, climb trees, play in the creek, pick weeds to draw, make primitive huts, play with fire, hang-out with friends, explore intimacy.....whatever.
“I did however used to think, you know, in the woods walking,
and as a kid playing the the woods, that there was a kind of
immanence there - that woods, and places of that order, had a
sense, a kind of presence, that you could feel; that there was
something peculiarly, physically present, a feeling of place
almost conscious ... like God. It evoked that.”
- Robert Creely, Robert Creely and the Genius
of the American Common Place
Trash Night
(A poem to be read aloud and felt on the tongue)
One humid night on unkept lawns
prone to spells
from playing Heaven
Our day together
now exhausts
and seeps into nocturnal wells.
Lying still
our bodies lucid
speaking bones upon the Earth
Draining back
the mind
the muscle
revealing all
we’ve known
since birth.
Spotting rabbits out to feed
cocked to spring
at a moments rustle.
Here I’m drawn to be in need
by her side
beneath this sky.
And like these mammals I get stunned
by movement, shapes,
immense and hovering.
As planets sing their
primal origin
Tense and smothering
Mercury swaying backward
amidst the company
of father’s Mars
brooding
over the same old quandary
numb to hear their children’s hollers
creeping about
looting
the altars.
I have no speak
in matters that complicate this death
of bond
for now I care to be by you
defenseless,
meek.
Every time you turn
your timid tease over
to my will.
In fearless haste
the loosening ground
‘round me
dissolves yet another
ill conceived thought
unspoken.
With brilliant eyes
alive with hope
resting on me
I toss myself
into those pools
where moon reflects
rippled by your dancing
around this question.
Closer
I count your hairs
naming every one
‘until you say,
“Don’t study me
Move!…Now!
God is a verb!”
Her words
dispatch
the nature of Uranus.
The clever child
spinning unseen around the world
tinkering.
Despite
we
who author this night,
in the curvature of her spine
bend the forces
that bring me to being.
So there I touch
the base of this belonging
to have nothing to do with no one.
A passing light rounds the curve
and skirts across
the dew prismed lawn.
Sitting still
I and Thou
wait for what is never gone.
We found our Love on trash night
when suburbs dumped domestic stools
and the smugness of purity prevailed
As houses set their garbage altar
we vowed this night
to set our love on water.
un-damned if we do
- damned
if we don’t.
Since
through sleepy lies
we’ve poured
our hearts
through family ties
spanked by dreams
through the duress
of mothers
abandon
all lowness
where our water searches
We’re due.
Box flaps rudder the wind kicking up.
An overcast blurs the moon
and the flickering pinheads.
A sudden haze drops like a lid
while neighbors in shadow
still lug about
stacking black sacs
like a late night departure
piled two high
upon the shoulder
hissing
like a dying marriage.
Now this humid night on unkept lawns
prone to swells
this sea of grass
This night we’ve earned
with one collapse
to waste streams goes our ego.
Flowing too fast to trace
Tasting to great too slow
Licking salt off a twisting torso.
Rolling bloodworms
in the night crawling up the sidewalk
squirms down the black drains.
Spirits hum
with upturned jaws answering
cry whispers, moist and heavy saying
“I feel
the drops of rain
running down our skin”.
In holy longing she draws me in.
Be her comfort.
Shed my sadness.
Here within mechanics rule.
Our hands like sprockets
weaving chains of tightening grip
less escapes that cycle back
to where we both begin.
Now bowing tame
Our body liquid
derails inward toward a sleep
where all are afloat on that watery same.
Love cries like giving rain
as an overcast breaks
a gentle sweat
And clouds extract
a sweetness as all restraints
we now forget
The plant musk
wet bark on standing shadows
and the bricks steaming bitters
Rain upon our face
and the wind
as it litters
Hips sink in the chocolate soil.
Slowly
swelling
street curb wakes
fingers out and trickles
like aft play off its course.
This passion in our nature hoarse
that voids this street
and floats its empty boxes out to sea
May the sky crest and bust
until there is nothing left
of us.
For something knows!
all we were ever made for.
and to meet this something every time.
we fall
into the flow
of our Love being.
- W. Zell
Copyright © 2010 Will Zell All Rights Reserved.