Atlas' Haul
For Ghost

The night put white moon beneath
your first floor window. Snow
showed shadows of you last night.
The white drift filmed you free:
relaxed, agile, focused. Your
dance? You hung up your curtain
the one you concocted from a green
sheet, folded with 90 degree angles
and 180 degree lines. A dance.
You performed a work that let me
hear the wisdom, "Fear not the
shadows of the night snow." This
morning the sun rose, I looked
upon your moony stage where your
routine stilled me hours ago. The
stars claimed your dance, dropped
down from the sky into glitter's
prism in the snow for a risen sun.
Awake! I beckoned. "Go out to
play! Stars shine in your snowy
stage...unphased, you eventually
left your man made cave. Sun
haloed you with divine shine. You
carried an old gunny sack with
the word, Potatos, on it, roots of
the earth, food for the world. Atlas
dropped the ball. You carry his haul.

t.doyle
1/29/08

This poem was started in between calls at my job last Saturday.

I have tried since last Sunday to get to the Middleton library to put this on here.

You should have seen him this morning wrapped in winter scarf around his neck to stay warm as he peddaled to school.

That meant i could inspect his car which happened to be by mine. He's got books in there that he has read over and over, i can tell. He had a copy of his own book, his blue t shirt and his running shoes.

This is the first time i have seen him since last Saturday.

I have been working on my place so i can know him.

He carries the burdens of the world on his shoulder. He has an emotional presence that is nonverbal to me. I feel it.

To be that brave when so many run away and just consistently watch and bear witness is so strong.

I am going to be the wealthiest woman in the world because he has a phd in thinking and his writing is so fine and ideas mean more to me than money.

I just want everyone to know that i was scared too. I understand your fear.

And Ghost hasn t told me a thing. He remains present to me. I feel it.

And look at the poems i get on him, most people do the same thing every day. He doesn t.

So I finished the dining room after two months of working on it, and now onto the living room.

Then, onto Ghost.