My Production
“Me and my old cat. On a day that was very blustery & wet, she stayed dry, while I dragged a bunch of props across the snow and into the woodshed, to stage a little production. They wonder what we do out here in the woods all winter, besides strap on skis. A bag of fresh cedar boughs, a junk shop violin, one apple and a paring knife. I moved some stuff around: hay bales, stickered lumber, gas cans and someone’s hope chest left in my outbuilding to rot. I couldn’t budge the lawn mower, so i worked around it. I saw Herb pass by with his plow truck, but it just kept snowing. Ever so often, a huge sliding sound and a thunk, as the roof let go its load. I love my life, what’s left of it. Bad marriages took up a lot of my time, but I’m not bitter. Now in the mellow afterglow of what we thought was our nation, I’m over-prepared to meet the madness. Only takes me a few seconds to separate the psychopaths from the delusional, the cracken from the hopium. I know when and where to tune it out. They still come after me, trying to accuse me of moving stones off dog’s graves, or stealing instruments out of their sister’s closets. I can only go back to my production and set the camera to “action” on a tripod since I have no grip. I do my own toilets, my own editing, my own brochures. When the company loses money, it’s only me who can’t pay the bills. When the lights go out, it’s because I forgot to check the oil in the generator. But when the candle is lit and the sage is burning, and the mandolin comes out of its case to be held like a lover, that would also be me. I’ve got a lot of rafters to play to, and mice to entertain. The leftover angels who didn’t make the big leagues often loiter like mourning doves in my dooryard. They know how I watch the branches of trees & scan bushes for any sign of an audience. Because my production is unique. It involves falling in leaves for dramatic effect and sitting in piles of snow, to bring myself up to a decent height. Where i might be seen by god or the old cats in the neighborhood. Who do you trust? Obviously, not politicians or maybe you do. In fact, so many of you still seem to think our government is functional, I have to avoid your gaze. Did you not get the memo? I feel ashamed at how you go on and on, trying to garner support for your position. And that makes me feel responsible, because I didn’t get to you first. To tell you that I waited in my car, until I thought it was safe to enter a store like I used to. That I drove an extra hundred miles, to buy a donut. That when the wild country off kilter to the Greens rang with slanted winter sunlight, I was there. Wishing you were there too. There, to meet me in ramshackle hotel rooms again. To take me in your arms and sweep me off my feet. To tell me, everything is going to be alright again. And powerfully conjure the essence for me, of endless possibility and of dirt highways. I had so wanted this, and it seemed simple at the time. Now, instead, I can only pass by the road where we once thought a cabin was a universe away. And kept one night sacred, one night at a time.”