The old poets spotted me easily;

they know my type well,

more common each generation coming,

addicted to something,

often guilt, and blame.

 

They mark the ones like me,

who love empty adventure so much

we inexplicably try to die,

sometimes more than once,

to free the pieces of ourselves

long ago sacrificed to the underworld:

the debt children pay

to the angry, bitter men,

and the women busy

pulling their strings.

 

Those old poets

great ones

pointed at me when I was still young

and said to each other,

“Somebody watch him!”

 

On long drives—

late, when the dawn is far

and the moon taking the night off,

the darkness is my only company

unless you count the empty road—

I grow so tired,

and weary,

and wonder,

if anybody is awake

if anybody is waiting up for me,

and I sink into the cistern of that thought

deep and empty.

 

While in the blackest of my thoughts,

an owl emerges,

somersaulting bone-white

ahead of the window glass.

 

When I am in that well

he comes

from the cane fields

or the ancient forests

or the meadows that dance

with the breath of the wind,

and for a long moment he flies beside me,

and his white-feathered wings invoke

the memory of my guardians,

sent to remind me

that darkness does not make for good company.

 

The cave of my sadness

is illuminated by the torch I now hold

so I may read the message on its walls:

Many good men

were trapped here before I came,

and they are remembered

for bringing art and color

to that dark place,

and taking their bones with them

when they chose to depart.

 

And

I’m grateful

an old poet,

a great one,

is doing his job.