Back among the Living

I.
Back among the living, recovered from my sickness
or past lives, or both, however you want to read me,I seek out stone fences. I try to amuse. I wander
here and there beneath Earth’s great blue skies.I find a railroad trestle and walk across it,
arms outstretched as if I’m a scarecrow.In a dark alley¹, I draw a tic-tac-toe game
in blue and yellow chalk upon a brick wall,leaving the game for whoever comes along to fill it in
or ignore. Que sera sera, as my mother used to say.“What am I?” she’d ask. “A service elevator? A fire escape?
The last piece of peanut brittle² in an oval tin?”
 II.
Among the living, when I enter any new room,
I look out every window possible,drawing back drapes, raising up Venetian blinds
and bamboo shades to see what I can see,like the bear that went over the mountain
who found on the other side of the mountainonly the other side of the mountain,
his story a little piece of crazy Zen.
 III.
And when, among the living, someone floats
an idea about the size of a bar of Ivory soap,I try to be the first to grasp it, so eager
to make a fool of myself, I becomeashamed of my reaching. I eat Chinese food.
I worship in banks. I prostrate³ myselfin wholesale⁴ stores beneath towering stacked goods,
and when I sleep, which isn’t very much,I find myself dreaming of tree surgeons
cutting down everything beside my bed.
 IV.
This living, I tell anyone who will listen,
makes about as much sense as a dirigible,or why so many spend their lives
trying to avoid the certainty one dayDeath will meet them head on. The last thing they’ll see
will be the prow⁵ of a ship, a train cowcatcher,a Chevrolet grill⁶. Oh well, as my father
used to whisper when he’d finished an ice cream cone,that’s all there is. Que sera sera. What can you do
but lick your fingers and get on with it.