On Commuting to Work
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| Sufjan Stevens in 2005. |
Kids in my generation know "Chicago" for its movie soundtrack overtones (click if you don't believe me), or even "Casimir Pulaski Day" for how Stevens uses a religious experience to inform his perspective on a close friend's death. People of all ages should listen to it because it is just good music. I'm still holding onto the dream that he finishes his project to write an album about every state! Only 48 to go!
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| Same guy, with his wife and kids in 3005. |
This poem's title is my tribute to that great dreamer. But the poem itself is purely an attempt to process the bombardment of thoughts, feeling, and interactions that get tangled in the context of crossing cultures. I can now write in graphic detail about the dissonance of crossing these cultures, which is purely poetic, but feels like going on a mission to another planet. Every time.
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| That leaves me thinking, Morgan Freeman should totally narrate this post. |
Commuting to Work:
Or, A poem concerning a bachelor-party celebration for my friend Phil in the Marin headlands, where we probably drank too much but still had a good time because, well, it was safe and we are responsible adults, and then got some soul food in Fairfax, after which I then drove to San Jose and visited both my old house and church and my friend's new house, only a few blocks away, and then drove to Fresno, stayed with some family, and then another day in the hood, and then back to Roseville, Or, How to Mix Metaphors, or, Guillermo the Space Machine. Or, how to simultaneously love fundraising for Jesus and have a postmodern crisisThis morning I woke up
in an apartment complex rich
with the sounds of the city.
Sound flooded in the open windows, carrying
the echoes of the trash-strewn pavement, early morning truck deliveries, and the cries of children
eager to play
before they hurry down the street to
a school I've probably never heard of.
I uttered my usual morning prayers, the psalm's
cadence mechanically
drifting off my tired, yawning lips after
this weekend.
I wake up my steed, Guillermo,
And ignition sequence starts.
Just 48 hours ago, I was still asleep
in the bosom of redwood trees clinging to the slopes of Mount Tamalpais,
surrounded by some of the best friends I've ever had.
We were young, clinging to the last experience we would have as unmarried men.
Another will make his rite-of-passage.
We had two weeks to mourn our incomplete friendship
about to become whole.
Two weeks to the place where they will inhabit the space
Not five blocks
From where I am
a terrified ten year old with a hint of that subtle Virginia drawl
Unaware of his older brothers,
A community unhindered by hundreds of miles
and the full spectrum of vocational clarity
spread among us: we were campus ministers, engineers, and homeless travelers.
We were "we."
Now I,
as "I," found myself fast-forward to Fresno, pushed across more distance than
my synapses can fire
It was a vision of the future,
but it was not the whole vision, shared
by seven billion faces reflecting the
glory of their creator into
their friendly cousins, the stars.
I breathe again, inhaling lukewarm water
and
tempering my addiction normally reserved for coffee
And I, like a spaceship,
now find that I
veered
too near the
black hole
of His
relentless love,
God snatching me
into his arms
Like the Mother darting
for her child that trips in the dust--Spaghettified
Conscioussness obliterated in
The infinite death and resurrection
And I am born again, a child
Taking his first few timid, lazy steps,
dusting himself off,
And finding himself warm and safe in Roseville
An inhabitant of another time and place,
looking at the same white 2000 Ford Ranger
Wondering why they didn't write "space travel" in the Blue Book.
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