This damned malaise,

Dementia,

Stripping cohesive thought

Removing propriety

Shattering confidence,

Histories,

Futures

Reduced to moments,

Seconds,

Single breaths

Repeated, repeated, repeated

Until the next diversion,

The next humiliation,

The next terror.

How could a loving God invent such torment?

Or, with our limitless free will

Did we bring it on ourselves?

Blast this wretched condition to Hell,

With all the pitiful attempts to avoid it

And all the head games played to ignore it.

Blast it all to Hell!

Well, B.B., the thrill is not gone,

but requires that I turn the desk toward the room,

the interior walls and nooks and crannies,

away from the window with all its distractions…

children riding bikes, giggling

husbands banished to their garages, puttering

strangers delivering flyers in the heat of the afternoon…

do feel free to sit on the porch

in the shade

for a moment

but do not knock,

do not disburb me,

I get to acknowledge you only when my work is done

which may not be soon.

Oh, Good Lord,

I suppose if the sun comes up at five, ten:ten is mid day,

an ill considered time to begin a walk

through the prairie grass stretching beyond the houses off Wildcat Reserve.

Blooming yucca and thistles just about to burst purple in the blazing sun

first catch my eye, then my legs,then my shirt – making me itch.

Show some sort of mercy,  you bastards of the high desert,

mercy on me here without a hat to act as shade and fan,

sweating in sheets,

come too far to turn back around –

six of one direction, half a dozen of the other steps home.

‘Til now, at last, after an hour and a half,

taking step after step without pausing for fear my knees will lock,

wondering how in God’s name Mark and Sheryl

have walked a thousand miles and more along the Appalachian

without their own beds to fall into at night,

I stumble through my front door into the cool, A/C controlled air

and collapse with a sparkling water on my cushioned Eastlake settee.

I’m grateful

Amen.