Environmental Catastrophe Film

I. you would run through the neighbors yard / overbrook and billantau street / cut the corner to the break in the trees / heading where the light sinks into the dark / to take the hidden path that leads to the creek / and the embankment where they’d sunbathe asleep / you can see it where the light bleeds back in ahead / where approaching with your knees bent down / keeping close to the slope / crouched low under the cover of reeds / you’d sneak and reach your hand in behind / try to grab on the tail / hold it up in the air high / feeling it writhe / feeling it panic / trying to twist / from your hand clenched tight in a fist / as if trying to swim / swiping it’s claw toward the ground / but finding nothing underneath it could reach / to break free into the water below / where you knew you shouldn’t ever get close

how told since birth / they’d leaked poison throughout it all / the only history you really knew about / not how gypsum spilling outward gave a name to the creek / or how by mining it dug tunnels beneath / every street in the neighborhood / the ones you took to get to the woods / you knew their names not where they came from or meant / all those dead men / fading languages left / last vestiges above intersect / to the river where the creek went / where two centuries back / they came prophesied to settle the land / took the rapids out with the dams put down / to float timber to the factories on the banks of the grand / to build homes / before they made furniture / and others came to live and worship / started a church / to raise families and their families started ones of their own

and you follow in reverse where it goes / backwards home

II. to where you’re staring at the water below / what would happen if you fell down the slope? / if you drowned where would your body wash out? / would it carry all the way to lake michigan? / and if you didn’t would the poison inside / from the river kill you later in life? / in the kitchen with your wife and your kids / eating dinner when your body gives in

and again / sitting with your family in church / would it matter anyway if it did? / if it’s true what the sermon said / in heaven there’s a ledger and you’re there / circled twice on a line in the back / does it matter then?

if he’d never draw a line through your name / when you found that magazine in the woods / why the shame flooding in / when they asked if it felt good to look / and it did? / and you blink / and you’re back / but you’re no longer a kid

here at church to say goodbye to a friend / who like you was circled twice on the line / and he took his own life / if you give in to the poison inside / could they deny you when you try to get in?

and at the water again / you swing your hands above the creek / reach to find the ground / there’s only air underneath

and you understand a lack of control / when you look upward from the water below / to know whatever held you up let you go / and you fell / and that there’s only one direction the water flows

there’s only one direction the water flows / it only goes forward / forward / forward

there’s only one direction we go / and we can only go forward every day / to the end where we began / to the darkness up ahead / and everything that happens in life / will never happen again / and you spend your whole life learning to swim / and you can never know what’s over the bend / and every moment passing / is another one you’ll never get back / and you can only get older

III. man turns the lathe / on the blade sharp / the grade angled down / carves away / at the grain / where the hand / holds the blade / spins around / and falls soundless / to the ground

and what it takes / gets swept up at the end of every day / gets thrown into the stove to burn away

turns to flames first / to burst bright to smoke / climbs to fade / makes the steel glow with warmth / gave to hands / touch the face

and what remains / becomes an arm / becomes a leg / and when assembled / at the end / becomes a chair / for you to sit / became the railing / on the staircase / at the first place / where we kissed / became the roof / became the bedframe in our room / became the house where we first lived / and we became / what we became

what we need here / just to breathe / everything in me / spinning on the lathe / up against the blade / turn me into shape / carve it all away / throw it in the flames / turn it into heat / let it keep us warm at least / and me? / let me be the legs / let me hold you up / let me never break

watch the past fall away / all our lives against the blade / because the time goes / and we change / not what we made / but what can be / come with me

to cut the yard / go where the dark leads / to the creek / through the reeds / will you please / do it just the once / do it just for me / let me sleep / in the sun / let me feel you reach / hold me out / keep me up above now / let the time freeze / come and lie here with me

at the creek / before we go / before we must / fall in it with me / carried in the rush / into the lake / let it wash us all away / become the waves / become the air / because we breathe / because our lives go only forward / and we die