“I’M GOING TO TAKE A TRIP IN THAT OLD GOSPEL SHIP”

Did the great ship with the bier of the Hunter Gracchus

Pass by this year? Or is it just late?

Or did it finally find the seam,

                                    the crack between this world and the other,

And slip through, sails furled?

And drifts now, as it was meant to drift,

                                                                 on pure, unpestilent waters,

Still circling the globe, and out of its cage forever?

Hard to know, George, hard to know,

Its left-behinds still vibrant,

                                            its wake still ripply in the evening sun.

So difficult to belay the myth,

                                                    so difficult to hold

Hard to the transmutation of narrative and imagination.

The real world has its hands and feet in the other one,

Though its head’s here, and its heart is here.

The clouds, as they always do, present us the option:

Dig down, brother, dig down deep,

                                                             or keep on walking fast.