How Many Forms Can A Guy Hold?

Amber-black winds toss me

one way then another

over soft ground and hard.

Sometimes I lift off.

Mostly I luff along

or hide in the wind’s shadow.

At times my toes

touch empty space.

But how much falling

can any day hold?

It’s not my call,

and I fall after all.

Unsettled things find me then,

things I’ve worried smooth

like stones in rough surf.

Here, distrust in a chancy world.

There, secretiveness.

Or independence masking need.

Or overwork as a diversion

from what circles close.

I flirt with chaos,

yet sleep beneath a pillow

for the safety of softness.

Deeper still,

there’s cinnamon

and distant tambourines,

enticing, comforting…

the seeds of yearning.

I am so many

ceaseless, tumbling forms,

glowing and dark.

There’s no saving myself.

Not from places opening as they will

nor from wind

nor from what wind carries through.