Pilgrimage

For eighteen straight days, I left
for the love of another woman.
For eighteen straight days, a man
paced and talked alone. Silence,
for eighteen straight days.

For eighteen straight days, I have seen
pictures that would weep out masters,
images which speak in the only way
things can speak. With wholeness
and with outness. Without a legend,
without design, without clarity in design.
But not without wonder and color and space.

For eighteen straight days, I’ve watched you
emerge from the ash pit. The ash pit black and dirty.
For eighteen straight days, the tongue has waited
and risen
and waned
and waited
again
for eighteen days.
For eighteen straight days, the circle is
unbounded and open, and opening
still
now.
In eighteen days, a man’s mind can change.

For eighteen days, born. To awful birth.
For eighteen days, mourning the loss of pessimism,
for eighteen days, defensive posture,
for eighteen days, forgotten strategy,
for eighteen days, motive and reason.
For eighteen straight days, I have made
and been made
to art,
have been introduced
through art,
have been in love
by art. By art,
I have been loved for eighteen straight days.


For eighteen straight days, I wondered how many days.
For eighteen straight days, certain that today I failed.
For eighteen straight days, success. Eighteen days.
Eighteen straight days of mind. Eighteen straight.
Eighteen straight days of vision.
Vision, eighteen straight days’ expression. Expression.
Eighteen bodies. Eighteen. Eighteen sobs
and eighteen shits. Eighteen drinks
and eighteen caps. Eighteen. Eighteen straight days of this.

Eighteen days of celebrate. Celebrate people.
For eighteen straight days, my friends are famous.
For eighteen straight days, I held a ticket for Greece.
For eighteen days, eighteen times, I asked should I go.
For eighteen straight days, I went—while waiting for an answer.
For eighteen straight days, I am going still.
For eighteen straight days, I sit for the first time.
For eighteen straight days, someone knocked on the door,
pounded the door and pleaded to come in.
For eighteen straight days, the knock was from the inside.
For eighteen straight days, the mind doors burst open.
For eighteen days, there sits an ordinary man.
For eighteen days, the light out-shined his face, blurring his face from behind.
The man appeared for eighteen days with doves.
For eighteen days, I watched them let loose.
For eighteen days, I named them in poems.
They flew for eighteen days.
For eighteen days, married on the same day.
For eighteen days, the doves whispered their names.
They spoke different names to each of us. But for eighteen days,
we saw them together.
Symbols in the sky, so many symbols, everybody’s symbols,
with people inside, for eighteen straight days.
In eighteen days, the doves are crows twisting against our shadows
in furrows of blue.
For eighteen days, we wondered when to land, waiting for land.
The pasture is a symbol for spring, newly sprigged in green.
For eighteen straight days, we made it.
We landed.
Here we are. For eighteen days. We yawn. With sighs
held in
for just that long
and taking
just that long to come out. For that long,
we held our breaths.
And now, for eighteen straight days, we breathe without them.