The Excavation

The Excavation

It’s not like flying higher,
she said—but love does give you
wings, I still believe that—
it’s like going deeper,
an unearthing of every level
you thought was the foundation
of your ability to love,
of your capacity for vulnerability.

I feel the excavation
in the small earthquakes of your heartbeat
when I lie next to you,
when your eyes like surveyors
measure my landscape,
noting landmarks even I have not seen.

The comfort comes after every demolition,
when the dust settles
and the sparrow flies
and we two are rebuilt
into one house
with the same materials.

7.30.10
cll

Rest.

Rest.
by Richard Jones

It's so late I could cut my lights
and drive the next fifty miles
of empty interstate
by starlight,
flying along in a dream,
countryside alive with shapes and shadows,
but exit ramps lined
with eighteen wheelers
and truckers sleeping in their cabs
make me consider pulling into a rest stop
and closing my eyes. I've done it before,
parking next to a family sleeping in a Chevy,
mom and dad up front, three kids in the back,
the windows slightly misted by the sleepers' breath.
But instead of resting, I'd smoke a cigarette,
play the radio low, and keep watch over
the wayfarers in the car next to me,
a strange paternal concern
and compassion for their well being
rising up inside me.
This was before
I had children of my own,
and had felt the sharp edge of love
and anxiety whenever I tiptoed
into darkened rooms of sleep
to study the small, peaceful faces
of my beloved darlings. Now,
the fatherly feelings are so strong
the snoring truckers are lucky
I'm not standing on the running board,
tapping on the window,
asking, Is everything okay?
But it is. Everything's fine.
The trucks are all together, sleeping
on the gravel shoulders of exit ramps,
and the crowded rest stop I'm driving by
is a perfect oasis in the moonlight.
The way I see it, I've got a second wind
and on the radio an all-night country station.
Nothing for me to do on this road
but drive and give thanks:
I'll be home by dawn.