Matt Beard

A fine line
Divides the pursuit
Of overwhelming joy
From sheer
And loathsome
Irresponsibility

The high tide line
Divides
The rest

Consider us divided
And
Conquered

Even the Spaniards
On the tall ships
Know…

Both victory
And defeat
Taste better
With a dash of salt
And lime

Who wrote this book of etiquette?

All of the pages are blank
As though the ink has spilled right off the paper
Leaving us to write our own rules with pencils
And skin
And burning eyes

After reading from cover to cover we are left
Just as we were before
Somewhat crude
And still rather unrefined

Even though she was royalty
We continued to stare
At the lines
Around
Her blue eyes
And at the
Shape of her
Trembling
Lips
That encircled
Her delicate mouth

Meeting her was
Our good fortune

She showed us grace
And mercy
We did not
Earn

Little did we know then
Just how good
The Queen would be to us

Or just how difficult
Fortune can be
For those
Who have received it

The hills are burning
And we breathe the smoke
Of their exhalation

Second hand exposure
To long forgotten memories

The mountains never forget

Hovering over the water
Weightless over the face of the deep
The storm rides silently off to the hills
To darken the eyes of the cattle
And drown out the country music

The light that remains
Clear and unfiltered
Falling from above
Reveals an orchestra of liquid geometry
At once carnal
Yet also divine
Each note the offspring
Of a passing storm
With the laws of fluid dynamics

We’re drawn to the symphony
The melodies ring beyond the hall
To the cliffs high above
Calling us to a quick dip in the sea before dark

But once inside the concert hall
We’re swept away in a mass movement
Of salty sweat and black leather
Nearly drowning in the mosh pit
Bruised, bloody, and broken

From there we glimpse the orchestra more clearly
Four awkward teenagers
And a mountain of noise
Who allowed these kids to take the stage?

It is here that we learned this law of the sea-
It’s always bigger
Than it looks from above

We came to this mountain in search of gold
We’ll leave with pockets full of solitude
We speak to the wind
We are here now
Everything else is gone
The cars and houses
The monies and the media
The interconnected web of information that
Ties us all together
None of that can truly exist at all

We know because we’ve listened to the quiet
That raged so loud our ears bled
We know because we’ve stood on the edge
And peered over
And seen everything we ever held on to
Smashed against the rocks
And washed away
Only to be returned as the treasures of
Small children on the outgoing tide

Dream on, dreamer, but when you awake
You’ll find nothing here
And that will be all that you need

Our father
Kept us moving
Even though
We stopped a bit too often
To read the signs
And ponder
Their meanings

When it was time to move on
We would often
Have to push with all of our might

Barefoot
On the rough pavement

Our father
Drove a Volkswagon

Sunday morning.

Somewhere under a cathedral ceiling the choir is singing an old song.
Out here under the open sky the choir sings the oldest song.

Somewhere under a cathedral ceiling, a choir is singing a new song.
Out here under the open sky, the choir sings the newest song.

The angels sing softly on the wind, they roar like thunder on the water.
They’ve sung from the beginning.
Unceasing.
They’re still singing now.
They’ll sing until the end.
Maybe even longer.

I worship out here with color, because I usually sing out of key.

When I am finished, I will go sing badly in the cathedral.
I enjoy those songs too.
Or perhaps I won’t sing at all, but I may still hum along.

But one thing is certain- on this Sunday I will go at night
Because the morning
Is full of light.

Out from her
Slumber
Eyes blinking
At the newly minted greens
Of a silver spring day

The forest is full
Of dollars
But she is hungry
For the fish
That used to swim
Up the river

Today
She will
Stand still on the old
Logging road

And even though
The whole earth shakes
On this day
She will not be moved

As the old roads evolved into flight paths
We considered the implications
Of exploring
Rabbit trails
From the sky
And determined
For all the expansive visions
That pass through an elevated state of mind
There are other paths that are still better
Traveled on foot
Where you can hear the
Crunch of gravel
And feel your blood move faster
With every uphill step
And be reminded
That nothing worthwhile comes easily
But for now
Just sit back and enjoy the views
We’ll be landing soon enough
And besides
Here comes the flight attendant
With snacks

They sit motionless, watching passively, not engaged in the passage of time like you or I, yet not outside of it either. We travel the world searching for new experiences, new understandings of what it is to be alive. They watch us come and go and always return again to their steady gaze. Changed, yet somehow always the same.

They have no need for comings and goings, yet they do not mock us. They know better. They have seen enough to know that our days are short, and our nights long.

They’ve seen our births. They’ve seen our joys, our fears, our love, and our tears. They’ve seen us wed, and they’ve seen our blood shed by hate, by sorrow, by intoxication, by miscalculation. They’ve seen our recreation, our red tape, our revolutions. They’ve seen our wars, our battles, our nobles, our scoundrels. They’ve seen us die. They’ve seen our burials, our burning bodies, our ashes scattered amongst them.

This is their secret: knowing without any effort that if they wait a little longer they will see it all.

If you are still, and you can hear the silence between the rumbling oceans, you just might even hear them sing.

Each has a different voice- one loud, one soft, one strong, one deep, one high, one low, and one with the voice of our Grandmother.

We’ve spent long days here
North of the river

We’ve spent
Our last two dimes
On
Heaven
And waffles
And a good night’s sleep
Sheltered
From the falling snow
Until the storm blew over

And now we ourselves
Are spent
Worn out
Like the two
Ragged
Dog blankets
In the back of the van

One more look at the ocean
Before we head home
And two things
Become clear

We’re not going home tonight
And
We’re gonna smell like dog
In the morning

They took one last look at the river
And longed for another time
Saddened by the parade of motorhomes and meth
Stretching from the ends of the earth to right here and right now
They refused to join the neon funeral procession
They took their stand
And to this day they remain
Still
And beautiful
And made of solid gold

Cerebral flapjacks cooking on the whiskey bar
Artificial roller coaster couldn’t beat the bumper car
Creepers in the bushes, don’t look now
It ain’t no good
Sanitize it, light the wick
Then give ‘em all your food

Paint the cave and take a bath
But what about the money?
Stick parade, children laugh, hiding from the sun
Drink the water, drink the brine
Eat the fish and honey
Leave a tip and exit quick
As soon as all the eatin’s done

Sun and wind, electric eels, out drying on a line
The pizza burned the house down
And blamed it on the wine
Our feet are wet with old concrete
The Romans laid to last through time
We checked the clock, the time ran out
They said they didn’t mind

How about the ancient ones
Still soaking in the past?
The love they made, the things they said
None of which would last
They wrote their names upon the walls
Like flowers through the cracks
They killed the sky, they drowned the moon
They wrote them loud and fast

Look around, make no sound
What is it we have gained?
This is it, there’s nothing more
This is all that still remains