
Sticks in a row
From Out the Cave as I explore more landscapes in the Pinelands of NJ.
When you have been at war with yourself for so many years that you have forgotten why, when you have been driving for hours and only gradually begin to realize that you have lost the way, when you have cut hastily into the fabric, when you have signed papers in distraction, when it has been centuries since you watched the sun set or the rain fall, and the clouds, drifting overhead, pass as flat as anything on a postcard; when, in the midst of these everyday nightmares, you understand that you could wake up, you could turn and go back to the last thing you remember doing with your whole heart: that passionate kiss, the brilliant drop of love rolling along the tongue of a green leaf, then you wake, you stumble from your cave, blinking in the sun, naming every shadow as it slips.
Joyce Sutphen
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