Is there any such thing as complaining that isn't whiny? Isn't there some objective, completely justified way to say Why Me God? It would seem not, for we are all servants and the servant may not expect to be treated better than the Master. And the Master suffered it all. Heartbreak, betrayal, lies, rejection, weakness, confusion, pain, abandonment - by His own Father, no less.

"...this is the world, this is the world, we live in /"

"it's not the one we choose, but its the one we're given / "

- Sea Wolf

What am I missing? What drove the Master through his dark night of despair up there on that rocky hill? Where can I get a piece of that? (Are pieces of that even available to be had, ha) I can't find a piece of that because I'm only a little one I can't see the whole picture, and the picture will never make sense to me.

I live in this world that my grandparents made a mess of, and now I have to clean up that mess without making it even more of a mess for my own grandchildren. The flood of humanism that engulfed my country after the Second World War has inundated all social structure and mores; destroyed all religions; overturned all barriers, given birth to monsters from the deeps. The building of houses of cards on credit, animal sex, the burial of the tablets of natural law under liberty, goddamn liberty.

My world must be rebuilt a stone upon a stone. And I must rebuild it, for my betters and superiors will not. Perhaps they cannot. Perhaps they are too poisoned by the flood. I must take these stones from the stiffening hands of my parents, whose sole calling it was to merely HOLD them for me, and begin a task that I will never see the fruits of...

i am not worthy
to hear you breathe
to feel your trust
to touch your feet

i am not worthy
to see the smile
your devotion brings
to thorny trial

i am not worthy
to be loved by you
of the word and service
of your heart so true

i am not worthy
to plumb the deep
your endless ocean
washes me clean

For Ariel

the traffic is stuck
the headlights glare
red curls in the window
a patient green stare

we live on the freeways
in the salt of the sea
daisies and bicycles
eucalyptus trees

She stands in the sand
wind tumbling her hair
a rose in one hand
casting petals to the air

There is no end
to the ocean's flow
nothing but the bend
of the beach house row

Six of us clustered around the oily rag spread on the pavement; Toque, James, and the kid. Dusk had fallen deeply and Toque had his car pulled up to the corner, the headlights illuminating the bank of four motorcycle carburetors lying on the rag. James fiddled with the mixture screws, mumbling through his cigarette. "you're bike is gonna run so much better man, so much better when we get this cleaned up. It'll be like night and f---ing day." The conversation drifted to off-roading, and then eventually tapered off to silence.

"I love motorcycles man, I love 'em." James spoke what we were all thinking. Simplicity, purity, camaraderie in the challenge of keeping them running. It doesn't take much. Here we are tuning up the carburetors on the kid's GS750 in a church parking lot with two flathead screwdrivers, some slivers of coathanger wire, and an evening breeze filtering through the eucalyptus trees. And enough beer to float a boat. No, it's more about the enthusiasm, with one experienced bicycle mechanic chewing on a cigarette and Toque digging through his toolbag. Here's that pair of pliers. We're all here sitting around here like cowboys around a fire, cleaning their tack, in the middle of the desert. We're all sitting around this oily rag staring into the dying glow of the headlight beams while James performs his voodoo magic on this mistuned bank of carbs.

I'm gonna miss this kinda thing. The beer, the pliers, the cigarettes, the jumbled tool bag, the furrowed foreheads in the headlight beams. I'm gonna miss it...

why can't I write about her? Is there too much to say? All the poetry in the world won't suffice. I've lost the wolf, the orange eyes are now a page in my past, a dusty jpg on a rewritable CD.

No words seem to be necessary. This is too real, too scary, too sacred and too confusing...I'm so awed and so challenged...

"Call it."

- Chigurh, No Country for Old Men

Oh, no. Noooooo.....

it's funny how life moves on, taking you with it.

I'm a reluctant prophet, but the future holds four wheels. The future IS four wheels. And a trunk. And maybe, probably, a roof.

But there will always be room in the carport for the old way of life. There will always be a need to save gasoline on the daily commute to work. And the blue V-Strom is paid for, fits me like a new leather glove and is the only thing in my life that doesn't give me problems...