drive

Loki

Okay. The colours of the world
are so bursting from everything
when I drive the car home that I cry
or almost – just to see the patterns.

How subtle, how elementally subtle –
there is no easy way to say this
how the greens between greens are vast
hold whole languages with space to pass by.

The trees at the traffic lights, with branchmass
reach out for a future less worrisome
in a concord of orange, yellow, and greens –
Fireworks pretend to the complexity

and brightness of these trees.
This is not hyperbole. Reach, I say.
I go home and make the beds
for my family, forget the night –

except your eyes, holding mine
like a caught spider in their blue fire
never relenting, and your smile. My friend,
I create endless worlds to match it

V.60

In the background things pass away
making a noise like dark fire
crackling. We go around nudging
remains into the embers with

our feet. There, fragments of wire lie
where authoritarian
structures once rocked back and forth. Life
burns and brings sadness. The brambles

are so green but in the fire, lines
of red-gold crisp light steam and curl
around the blackening leaves. Feel
the substance behind beliefs fall

away and reveal the golden
embers and their heat that can sting,
as the smoke curls up around you
wherever you walk round the flames.

On the drive home, it turns out that
the universe conspired to build
Nick Drake so he could soundtrack this
night. I feel complete in the car,

with the moon, moon, moon, moon, and me.
As I turn the corner to home,
I see the subtle moon, pink haze.
The record sleeve hangs in the real.