You were never with me. Not all of you. In your absence I added pieces: jokes from a friend, a voice from late-night interviews, a laugh from someone else’s mouth. I grafted our fronds of fondness into forests in the way only a lonely heart is able. Mulching with memory and tilling over time I nurtured the brief hours of us into full bloom, resounding bright with the tenderness in which you held me, perfumed with playfulness. I wanted to know you better than this. I memorized our dancing, public and unnecessary when a parked car played Tom Petty. Calm and quiet along with Kevin Morby. Sensuous and volatile our naked bodies in the noisy forests, on the raw sea’s rocky shores. Our sweet fervent lovemaking holding for me prayer, an understanding never black or white, of ceaseless changing, temporary passion, weak love. I created high contrast to soothe the aches of your departure. Every time. Long gone to me now you’ve disappeared again. Desperate, your sister contacts me once more, hopeful still that I could know anything of your whereabouts. I never did, not even when I had been with you. In my heart you are a collage of perfect moments and imperfect reasoning: here you live with me in joyful love. In my waking life even the bleak reality of you beats the prospects, and so I allow myself the dream of you, not you, but you. Stay missing.

10:30 Ithaca

9:30PM Bath

Deets is so busy running around Grandy’s house that I have no more pics. She’s talking to anyone who will listen and cleaning cobwebs from who knows where by using her cute stupid face. The pitter patter of her paws all over the place is an absolute delight. Also my mama fed me as soon as I got home—what’s better.

¡Lo hicimos! El gran viaje grande no es completa pero ahora nos quedamos un mes en Maine.

big sigh of relief

in 2017, following a trip through Southeast Asia I was in my hometown again. it was the best part of the year and the best event to celebrate: The Great Blue Heron Music Festival on July 4th weekend. I leaned back in a campsite chair by the fire and marveled at the comparatively small bunches of leaves throughout the layered and sundry greens of temperate forest canopy. I had been in the tropics for months amidst towering jungle trees with leaves the size of my own trunk (torso, not rear). under similarly reaching stalks in an equally dense forest I was newly struck by the quality of daylight through translucent and quivering swatches of greens. recently I have been living in the high desert among junipers and scrub oak and prey animals. I haven’t been to my hometown in years, much less again at a glorious summer high. my current home in aridity has trees I can climb and lots of rocks. the greens of my youth are viciously vibrant, as with the blues; I have genuinely had to readjust. the trees with the little leaves these days loom like monsters so impressively tall. Deets is in joyful, playful confusion. she spent much of today watching chipmunks, and tonight we’ll sleep in a tent. throughout this trip I have been repeatedly overcome by awe at Deets’ adaptability, amid car rides, new spaces, strange sounds and new faces, fresh smells and wet grasses, trees with unclimbable trunks and no tops… what can’t this kitty do?!?

At one point I came out of the house to see my dad standing at the edge of the deck dangling a string over the side. and then Deets’ fat fluffy little paw swiped from her hideout.

8:00 Longansport, IN

-> 4:10PM Southern Tier Brewing Company, NY

-> 8:30PM Bemus Point (my hometown), NY

425 miles