There\u2019s plenty I miss, still, that I wouldn\u2019t want back \u2013
\nwhich I\u2019m beginning to think might be all regret\u2019s ever had
\nto mean, and there\u2019s maybe no shame, then, in having
\nknown some and, all these years, I\u2019ve pretty much
\nbeen wrong. Not that being wrong means wasting time,
\nexactly. What hasn\u2019t been useful? Having grown up with
\nbonfires each October, having equated them with fall,
\nthe communion especially of leaves falling, fire as
\nwhat both defined the dark \u2013 easily taken for granted \u2013
\nand kept the dark at bay, surely that\u2019s been worth
\nsomething, for it stays with me; in that way, it even now
\nmarks a difference between who I was and what I\u2019ve
\nsince become: a kind of bonfire myself \u2013 unattached,
\nthough, to any time of year in particular, instead
\na season of the mind entirely, as unpredictable
\nin occurrence as in intensity, cracked, blue,
\nforever half done departing, not so different
\nafter all, maybe, from the darkness against which
\nI\u2019m at once more apparent and somehow more
\nbetrayed. What has restlessness been for, the darkness
\nasks, as if that were the question, when the darkness
\nitself is its own question, the most honest one left,
\nas far as I can see, that\u2019s worth asking, that I keep
\nmeaning to ask, then faltering, not at all out of fear,
\nI think \u2013 I don\u2019t think I\u2019m afraid \u2013 but being fire, and restless.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To lift, without ever asking what animal exactly it once belonged to,
\nthe socketed helmet that what\u2019s left of the skull equals
\nup to your face, to hold it there, mask-like, to look through it until
\nlooking through means looking back, back through the skull,
\ninto the self that is partly the animal you\u2019ve always wanted to be,
\nthat \u2013 depending \u2013 fear has prevented or rescued you from becoming,
\nto know utterly what you\u2019ll never be, to understand in doing so
\nwhat you are, and say no to it, not to who you are, to say no to despair.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now that, at best, we\u2019d rowed halfway across the woods
\nthat we mostly thought of our lives as \u2013 despite the fact
\nof water \u2013 accepting our position, and understanding it,
\nstill mattered, but not like remembering what
\nthe point had been, why we\u2019d set out at all, from
\nthe very start: to release something, but what? whatever
\nthe erotic version might be of a soul we ourselves scarce <\/p>\n
believed in? A persuasive sound to that, but if nothing else
\nwe\u2019d at least learned to trust sound only so far, even as
\nwe\u2019d had to figure out the hard way to stop giving out trust
\nas if trust were sex, and not what more often just gets <\/p>\n
confused with sex…Above us, what sang like water was
\njust the wash of trees, now moving, now at rest in a wind\u2019s
\ndisruption. A slight rustling beneath us, as of fruit unfalling
\nfrom the ground it fell to, each time we\u2019d lift our oars
\nfree of the waves, and steady them there, respite, shadows
\nin a mirror, bruises on the larger bruise of the sea\u2019s black face.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a Bonfire There\u2019s plenty I miss, still, that I wouldn\u2019t want back \u2013 which I\u2019m beginning to think might be all regret\u2019s ever had to mean, and there\u2019s maybe no shame, then, in having known some and, all these years, I\u2019ve pretty much been wrong. Not that being wrong means wasting time, exactly. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[338,339],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n