Nathaniel T. Hughes

trees have stripped naked again, scandalous bark like hard nipples; seeing for miles: there's no where to go.

To study the multifarious strokes of southerly wind on bronzed, oily skin, to spend our time better, abiding in the in-between, noting the finite of infinite - the things right in front of our face, we fail to notice everyday, sitting in graying hues of black porous dirt, bathing in the shallow orange of ageing September rays; it's being spun like a cobwebbed earth, indiscriminately catching all the comes its way: Today, like all the rest, there's a mysterious twitch in the accelerating strings of time, river smells of midafternoon spewing off from the sputtering clouds; and a silence in its whitish stroke, finally slowing the hasty universe down; it's soothing, like wooden flute notes in our ears, a calming ripple through the gravity that holds us all in place. Get closer, and you'll see all amazing intricacies, the earth, just shifting over slightly, not even close to several degrees.

We departed dark basement gate 16 to Syracuse from the mess of New York's port authority terminal. All was silent as, everyone was OK with letting loquacious Jersey traffic do the talking for awhile. Yet, as we bumped and raged along, showing no mercy for potholes or lane-changing-horns, mouths began to move, and short words began to form. The sun was just scattered modes of light on the tired PA trees, when Jim from Jersey, sitting slightly behind and across the isle, began to talk to me. We quickly agreed that the Mayans were masters of the stars, kings of celestial bodies, resting in astronomical intricacies. We agreed that they weren't profits; and it was just by some sick twist of fate that the world is ending so close to such an infamous, arbitrary date. We agreed that life is crude and that, if we could, we'd make god fuck the asshole of the moon. And as the bus filled up with chatter, and weary sleepers waking up, we hit a dubious

Harking laughter and tiny voices across the street fill the air; as carefree free as they are, tomorrow isn't even a pebbled thought away. Here, there's only a slinking string of time and space, with crickets fighting for the darkest deva sound; it's in-betweens it all that there's a great... pause - the leaves forced upside down, the grasses waiting to be part of wilted vindication, and all the birds coming back from the edge of dangerous sleep deprivation. Yet one noise, transcends it all: a hissing, damning calm, saying: "It really shouldn't be that long now."

As old men in our mid-twenties, let's be rebellious, let's stay up past ten, let's put down the good ol' book we can't get away from, and denounce sleepy eyes. We'll give it up to reading outside the lines of our circumpolar stars, page-fold the space in-between and hold it out 'til dawn. Don't breathe here! Just wait... for the august of another sunrise.

We were amazing beyond worldly definition, cosmic rivers of suffering settling as oceans of desire in pitted bellies. It was tempting waves, an alcoholic thought of reverie calling on us, two polar opposites as tides, as separated light that blinds. We drank from each other then bathed until our souls caught fire, our consciousness momentarily becoming one. Shirtless, we glowed; our essence: a raging silence that deafened, a home of impermanence escaping the world. We set fire to the mirage and ideas separate of ourselves. We fell asleep on warm concrete pillows; transcending compassionate form, it was OK to say goodbye to the dream, OK to awake to the fading imperfection of the loving Yasodhara and Siddhartha we'd become.

Restless mind, just listen, like you know no better: the days aren't days, or minutes that are fragmented seconds of the infinite. It's a suchness of life not separate, a song that pervades us in all directions, yet only touches us when we're carefully sober, not praying for sun or rain, nobly resting unattached in a middle way. Why not oblige the stillness? Everything else has been wonderfully set in motion We have nothing to do But to not have something to do. It's only when we sit still that we feel; we are truly being moved.

If I squint hard enough, the snow storms outside appear as a dust-bowl in your eyes - dry and thirsty for the taking. It's a comprise, and, we'll accommodate each other in great stretch of middle ground, arms drawn for what still lies inside: My half for your half as we become whole.