Read Baxter and flipped. That's what it felt like. Pulled off the tie. Shucked the suit jacket. What was I thinking?
Left the city job, the city friends, the cynical jokes told over pretentious beer. Wasn't just the poetry of course.
I mean, and I'm sitting in an old hut on the bushline as I reflect on this, “There need be no other Heaven than this world” is good but...
Wasn't just the poetry. Restless mind, commune childhood, absent father. Dad, you're a prick. All sorts of reasons I can't sit still.
In lantern light I write poetry. It's pretentious. Screwed up papers surround me as I doze in a musty blanket.
Up at dawn, pissing in the grey light. Eat bread and lace my boots. Manic maybe, depressive sometimes.
Sick of my own thoughts – you might be surprised by that. So I climb through the scrub, find gaps in the bluffs. Morning mist below me.
I read the mountain for deeper truths. Each rock a book. The whole uplifted expanse greater than any library.
Sometimes I catch glimpses of its language. Here, says the mountain. Now, say the rocks. I breathe deep, heart swelling.
These moments don't last. Baxter knew it. There's no time in Heaven but down here we step ever onwards, never so still as a stone.
by Wayne Erb
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