With this playing, I am sunlit and 22,
crossing bridges, making for the ocean
settling north on a highway
all alive with the rocks and satisfaction.
the steaming desert is farther back than i can hold
with its life made of cracked heat and wild horizons
and the smell of august rain on scorching earth that makes us all feel as if we’ve come from something amazing
then the tundra, too, is back there where, in summer, there are green leaves
and rivers with escapes and men who hold doors
the city farther still, farther at my back, all the way to another coast
its beaming fresh buildings and daffodils along the avenues
when spring pushes so gently from the winter ground
but, with this playing, i’m facing the ocean, facing the west
i’ve reached the sunset and wonder what will be made of me here
it feels like i can crawl out of myself and address god by his first name
as if we have always, always been this close
