making believe

i thought of the nettles hiding from the moon in a night canopy, spreading themselves out to take in the rain. then i was lost in a blur of imagining, making believe that you were always mine & we were striding hand in hand like sunbeams in the white light courtyard of god... it was all just a song: muted guitars twanging out of a dead age, her lilting voice only sometimes remembered. a car passes on the luminous highway, carrying the music with it. i fell back into the trees, the rain, the roots, the squirrels, the dirt- all telling me what i already knew: you don't belong anymore! stern accusations, malignant fingerings of my foregone pride. i thought of the nettles- how they'd love to eat me up.A little explaination about some of the imagery: the song that I refer to ("muted guitars twanging," "her voice," etc.) is "Making Believe" by Patsy Kline... also, I borrowed the title. I was sitting in the forest (as I so often do), weeping over lost love (as I so often do), listening to Patsy Kline (as I so often do) when this poem came to me. The nettles, though in fact real, could have something to do with a distorted self image being projected onto my surroundings. Or something like that. Written September 19th, 2001 © on Oct 12 2001 06:18 AM PST   18 • 0 • 1