the west

The west holds the uncertainty of life closer that it was yesterday. It may not be fair to claim the spirit space here, but it feels like a refuge for introverts. My favorite time, dusk, is woven into the cellular landscape of the west, and night is imminent. My dad called it the blue time, which I have always preferred. It is the time of poets who pierce through to something they have finally wrangled, knife to slippery fish on wooden, bloodied board.

We also have water here, and of course the moon. Like silk straps sliding off shoulders, pretenses began to fall, and we arrive fully in our humanity. The colors of adulthood are black and blue, and the letting go comes with the price of deep and personal loss. Fall is my favorite time of year, and the west is responsible for this. The death of the leaves and oncoming chill mirrors our mortality being recognized, and the emotional body exhaling without all this pressure. It all becomes more precious here, when we understand it can be blown out in the sharp sting of one single moment. But we lounge on, playing with leaves and our hair in the hammocks. What else could we do, but lean back and feel the next wind on our skin? The moon is pouring her liquid out, like warm honey down the bones of the back, calling us here and home. Thank you thank, spirits of the west.