Carpe Diem

If you go to the Pacific Coast
and stand on the right hill
there will be a moment when
the full moon and the sun oppose
each other, just above the horizon,
and if you stretch to cup the sun in your left hand
and ladle up the moon in your right,
for that moment, you will balance
the heavens.

I've done it.

My daughter is still young enough
that when you look at her, you see kid,
but her childhood chrysalis grows thin,
revealing her fully grown wings inside, folded,
but ready to fly.

She told me that she's trying
to catch the wind,
and that she'll know she's done it
when she clenches her fists
and the wind stops.

I am the one who taught her
to take chances, to grow strong
in her power, to believe six impossible things
before breakfast and to manifest her dreams
through the force of her will,
but I am humbled.

When I pushed her through my body
into the world and lifted her up
for her first breath in the light, I hoped
she would be stronger, wiser, than I,
but I never expected it so soon.

I can throw myself out of airplanes, and
I can walk on fire, and I can stand here
and tell you my father didn't fuck me,
but he came close enough that seven years ago
I had to turn my head so I couldn't see his face
anymore, but I lack the courage
to clench my fists in empty air.

How can I be brave enough
to seize the day, but not to seize the wind?

I stand in front of you and cut open
my chest to show you what's left
of my heart, to show you my misshapen
inside child, still trapped in her chrysalis.
I don't know if her wings ever grew.

I don't do this because I'm brave. I do it because
I'm so scared.
I show you my ugly reality because I'm pretty sure
that you'll stop liking me, and I know damn well
you'll never love me, and I'd rather get that part
over with before it hurts too much
to survive, but I also can't stop hoping
that you'll look at what's left of me and see
something beautiful, that you might tenderly
touch my Childself's scarred face,
and if I pay attention, I might learn
from you how to do it.

What a life that would be.

Maybe I can catch the wind
of your breath, the breath of your soul,
if I reach out right
now.

2006

Thoughts and Comments

On the way to the 2006 Salmon Slam in Seattle, the Eugene Slam Team stopped at a Fred Meyer on Hawthorne in Portland to buy food and water that didn't suck. In the car afterward, we got to talking about avocados and how hard it is to find them in a perfect state of ripeness.

Samuel Rutledge said, "There are five perfect minutes for every avocado. The trick is finding them."

We talked about what a great opening line that would be for a poem and how many different kinds of poems could flow from it...sex poetry, self-discovery, recovery, list poems, and on and on.

After we got home, I decided to write one of those poems and this is it. The original draft does begin with the avocado line, but I later edited out the entire first stanza. I'm sure it will reappear in something else.

I performed "Carpe Diem" at the February Slam and it was beyond amazing. It was the kind of moment that's the entire reason I perform poetry at all. I watched people in the audience shiver and melt. A woman in the front row wiped away tears before I finished.

It was real, and it was such an honor and a gift to be a piece of that.

Oh, and if for some reason you don't know this already, carpe diem means "seize the day" in Latin.