It's Strange What The Heart

Except For When I Was Very Little And Thought That Being An "engineer" Meant He Drove A Train. Then I Imagined Him In The Seat Of An Engine Car The Color Of Coal, A String Of Shiny Passenger Cars Trailing Behind. One Day My Father Laughed And Corrected Me. Everything Snapped Into Focus. It's One Of Those Unforgettable Moments That Happen As A Child, When You Discover That All Along The World Has Been Betraying You.

Without Memories To Cloud It, The Mind Perceives With Absolute Clarity. Each Observation Stands Out In Stark Relief. In The Beginning, When There's Not Yet A Smudge, The Slate Still Blank, There Is Only The Present Moment: Each Vital Detail, Shocked Color, The Fall Of Light. Like Film Stills. The Mind Relentlessly Open To The World, Deeply Impressed, Even Hurt By It: Not Yet Gauzed By Memory.

I Always Wrote Little Things When I Was Younger. My First Opus Was A Book Of Poems Put Down In A Spiral Notebook At Five Or Six, Handsomely Accompanied By Crayon Illustrations.

At The End, All That's Left Of You Are Your Possessions. Perhaps That's Why I've Never Been Able To Throw Anything Away. Perhaps That's Why I Hoarded The World: With The Hope That When I Died, The Sum Total Of My Things Would Suggest A Life Larger Than The One I Lived.

All I Want Is Not To Die On A Day When I Went Unseen.