By Way Of Introduction

 …And how do we continue

A conversation between ourselves

And the world

Tween fact and fiction

Truth up against mendacity

Imagination confronting knowledge

I wish I could say I’m all ears 

But I’d be lying 

I’m mostly mouth

I hear what I know

News takes longer to land

Settle

Let’s talk about this

Without anxiety

Pressure or cliché’

My orectic soul bends toward

Infinity with boundless ambition

Twix layers  

Of inherited attitudes

Ancient expectations

I meditate on impossibility

On escape

On dreaming of flight

My omphalos is free

Though the creature

Between my wings is

Too pulled by gravity to fly

My joints make noise when

I stand

Turn

Or reach for glory

Everything points to Earth

Soil

I don’t know what to do 

With this identity crisis

Except explore it by way

Of introduction

By way of flirtatious exchanges

Between me and whoever

I was

Me and

Whoever you are

I’m a caterpillar again

Moving through chrysalis

Symbolizing emergence

Some indigenous Americans recognize

Chrysalis as soul trapped in body

Release of a butterfly as freedom

Of soul upon death

Soul of ancestors liberated

Flitting from flower to flower

Restlessness of mind

Changing subjects

Focus

The Greek word for butterfly is psyche

I’ve never known what’s best for me

But I know what I like

Inspired by the baroness Nica

Who loved Thelonious Monk

The moment she heard Thelonious play

Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter Rothschild

Walked out (or flew out) on her own life

Including a husband and five children

And devoted herself to bebop

The next exit waits

For bold escapes by those

In search of something new

To believe

Some space with more room

For creatures longing to fly