There are such things
And these are the things
Who'll turn your memories back into dreams again.
Oh, it's all flying and waving
For you to keep trying.
You're so close. So close.
All the returns
One of these days,
One of these days,
One of these days,
One of these days. -- Rickie Lee Jones
Driving through the night, the new moon invites the shyest stars into the sky and all the memories come in broken English, briefly, like the lights of distant farm houses, here now before sinking back beneath the hill. Approaching cars are rarities. They tease the darkness. They promise something. As if they were messengers that have lost their way, they cannot deliver. The pole star has hidden itself behind the vaporous cape of a passing cloud.
Every day, the sun sets 7 billion times, sets and rises in relationship to eyes opened and closed, drunk and sober, through windows and walls while wading into lakes and diving into oceans or sinking into the Sahara where the ball of fire turns the sands into a heart made of amber glass, still beating. What is seen and unseen? What is felt in the bones? Each soul situated discretely on the globe anticipates the day ending, the encroaching shadow; each soul anticipates the return--some nervously, some happily, some passively absorbed with sleep and dreams--of light to the sky.
I pass through the night like a series of veils. There are times when I laugh aloud, times when actual tears begin to congregate in the corners of my eyes. The past looks on, staring, like a disapproving cat. He is made of regret, and regret is only the residual stain of shame. But he is grinning, purring even. He is pacing in the cage of this flesh. He would devour me if he were outside. On principal, he would rip me limb for limb and leave my carcass for the hyenas to find.
I have been home. I return home. I pass through a third home on my way, and I am disoriented by my own sentimentality. Memories haunt the highway like hitchhikers. They taunt me to stop but its impossible (I have promises to keep, and miles to go). If only, if only... This is how nostalgia feels in the body, both airy and grave, like ghosts haunting the heart, its empty rooms. I am waiting here, in this atrium with its painted ceiling.
