Do you remember the time in the Arizona desert
when we burned the sacred candle in memory
of my Mother and how it was just supposed to last just
for 24 hours but lasted for days and days while we sang
and we weren't the least bit surprised?
It's a miracle we told each other and the Mariachi band that followed me to the toilet.
Remember how we drove through those ugly oil fields
so endless that we swore fealty to Whatever Power That Is
if we could just get the hell out of Texas before
the giant drilling machines came alive and sucked
all the remaining life out of us and our barely-flickering hopes
and somehow we did and weren't really surprised?
It's a miracle we told each other and our dog.
Do you remember that silly Zody's cap I got for you that you
wore outside the Capital Records building screaming SIGN USť at
people but they looked right through us (tsk tsk Loonies from the Canyon)
so we bounced another check and ate filet mignon and smashed a
perfectly full whiskey bottle in an enemy's mailbox and then abandoned our
dear dead red 67 Mustang convertible somewhere on Sunset knowing that if we
didn't leave at once the black porsches and the bitter dreams and the false hopes
would surely ensnare us forever and we would become statistics of stupidity
and somehow we didn't and were more relieved than surprised?
It's a miracle we told each other and Paul Simon on the radio.
Remember how unsurprised we always were/are by the news of another death
within the Broken Circle and how no one else would understand the Triad
or the healing trip when I conjured up the exact brand of gas station we needed so
desperately in the middle of the painted desert and which wasn't there when
we drove back through under blanket of dusk on our way to another state another
adventure at a marina at midnight and we swept aside the guards that were everywhere
(you said I had charmed them) and we simply acted like we belonged
there as we have done our whole lives long like in the luggage store in Hillcrest when
you never thought we'd get away with it but nothing really astounded you by then
and somehow we did and we weren't really surprised after our laughter faded?
It's a miracle we told each other and the Frozen Yogurt people.
Do you remember the sun shining in shards into the Grove and the unfamiliar
but longed-for feeling of peace disrupted by empty pretty words tumbling from ugly
mouths without the taste of Truth, but nicely enough to let us pretend for a while until
the soul-rippers showed their true colours and we escaped yet again and found
the modern
blessings of e-mail and the telephone and the magic that still persists and we
never thought we would be breathing much less smiling at this point in our journey
but somehow we are and we are thankful and somewhat surprised?
It's a miracle we tell each other
It's a miracle
mz