Golden-green the light that bathes
this deck.  Lexington Poetry Month
seems to depart and return as I tread
these boards, beneath these branches,
acting amid the scent of the wind, my familiar
curled around neck and shoulders, her heat,
her breath the muse of another June.

Social media grows envious.  Her tongue lolls—
her Time Hop features knitting eyebrows
and correlation, forcing epiphany:  This date
has seen 7 years of travel, or stagnancy
begetting lack of travel, house to house,
state to parallel state, nation to foreign soil

and each time, each moment, each recurrent
tail-end of June, since divorce, I have chased
identity—meaning—in the arms of someone
else’s roots.                         
                       Until last year; with fucking Covid
as my Tower, I planted a garden.  15 square feet
from where I sit, I razed dark earth and covered it
with rock, penned it in with rough-hewn brick
in order to release it, release myself, from the land
in which I was forced to live.  These hands spread death
and solidity to bring new life and escape. 

It is ironic and quaint to attempt to say: One trip remains.
Who am I to pretend I will ever shed the need to shed
the skin of place, to scrape myself across the rock
of distant spaces, expose an infant dermal transformation
to the elements so that if I claim to be a wise man, I might
know rebirth from fresh ignorance and grow,
                                                                                    grow,
                                                                                               never cease
to grow anew.
 
This current flesh-suit has suited nicely, but it’s served
its purpose; I will travel, once again, one last time—at least
one last time—that in transplanting the seed, however briefly,
I might recreate the sacred space, raze the earth, lay down rock,
depart from my familiar that I might return

a new creation,
tremulous and breathing—deep—cross-legged and fit
for meditation on a foundation of my own
craftmanship.