sirens monee not heard often but right now distant 041212 ... ovenbird Not one of us asked to be here, in the bodies we inhabit, forced to walk the plank between birth and death, and so we find ourselves trying to make meaning from the six feet of rough cut balsam between eternity and oblivion. I’m not sure where I came from and I don’t know where I’m going, I only know that there are whole worlds in the wood grain whorls that match the swirl of my fingerprints. I was born equipped with a magnifying glass and a telescope so that everything too small and distant to see could be brought close and made to share its secrets. I’ll tell them all to you if you ask me to, spill the “could have beens” and the “would have beens” and the “this is how it’s always beens” until thick vines grow up to the sky and we can climb out of this hell that might be heaven. I keep asking why I’m here but the only answer I get is a sharp prod to the back that forces me further out over the shark infested water. I would jump and let them have me but I’ve stopped to watch the petrels race stormclouds across the sea. It’s hard to say, now, if I’m closer to the beginning or the end. There’s still placental blood dried beneath these fingernails that rake through my hair, scared silver by all this living. Would you sit here with me? On the edge of everything where nothing is guaranteed but suffering? We can let our feet dangle and swing. We can catch fish for dinner and use their bones to dig slivers from our palms. We can let the whole day slide soft and briny into our mouths and ignore the Sirens calling us to our doom. 250816 what's it to you? who go blather from