Peeling off...thus,truer

The Moon in Time Lapse
by David Rivard


The moon in time lapse sliding over skyline
the way a remote frisbee might wheel through air
as slowly as a banjo once floated across the wide
Missouri River in my mind when as a boy
the devil to pay permitted me to dream-up
my get-away from home, far from my parents'
witchy vigilance & the wine-barrel cellars
of their household—this after my experimental
stuffing of a dinner fork into a light socket
in the green gazebo under backyard grapevines.
That fuse box blown & blackened was the bliss
of departure—it was thrilling, but sometimes
I have to stop to touch my life & see if it's real.
How surprising to find that I wanted so much,
and mostly got it. My fantasies are fewer now
(one involves living through a day without
resentments, the other getting seated next to
gorgeous Fanny Ardant on a puddle jumper).
No need to see my life as a story the world
has to read, no need for sentimental
mooning & nostalgia—blessed with a bit
of amnesia anyway, I don't recall much
of what went down. I know that it's engraved
there on some cellular level, & that I can't
command the consequences. Like a spider
who has climbed atop a survey stake in a bull-
dozed field, I feel slightly truer in any case.

This poem.today in my inbox.I was struck by the words,"i have to stop to touch my life to see if it is real.How surprising to find that I wanted so much,and mostly got it, my fantasies are fewer now....I feel slightly truer in any case".
I remember as a young child,a teenager day dreaming of what I imagined or hoped my life would be as a grown-up,some of the images were concrete,linear actual desires, much of which I have achieved or has realized, but then there is the ineffable ,that which the mind can not conjure up in concrete ways, the imageless, the intangible, the wordless, that which we feel as wave of undulating visceral ,something unique to the core fiber of our essence that secretly we know we are always striving to get there ,be there or with ,so to speak. It is like the metaphor of the unpeeling of the wet ,crisp,incisive unfurling of onion skin. That is still in process,in growth, the unfurling of our onion skins with salty,acidy tears,that at first seem to obscure the vague new forming images that appear, but isn't it true that when the tears have cleared, the onion blossom is unabashedly open, we have a greater clarity,a vision that is deeper, truer and closer to pointing us where or how to take the next step to our lives..
Thank you David Rivard for writing,sharing your thoughts.