here.  there is a lesson to be learned.

a wisp of beer; a eord typed;  converstations overheard.

today, talking with a hook-up (I would say ‘friend’ but that reeks of xanga’s rather lame social networking), the conversation turned on “getting old”.

“What is old?”  I asked.  Then immediately furnished this insight from a most brilliant observer of all things vital:  “May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living; whatever they sing is better than to know; and if men should not hear them, then men are old.” (e.e.cummings)

As a follow-up, I offered my timely analysis that “If  you don’t hear the birds, either you are old or all the birds have already died from bird flu.”

At that point (or shortly in the interchange thereafter), my hook-up recalled once observing two nondescript birds, clearly of the same unidentified species and similar in size, interacting with one another: 

“There they were—just doing bird things like chattering between themselves—and I just happened to be watching when all of the sudden one bird bites the other bird’s head off.”

“You’re kidding me.  It bit its head off?  Really?  And it was the same species?”

“Yep.  It just bit its head off.”

“Wow.  That’s sounds like a Black Widow spider consuming her mate after copulation.  Maybe the two birds just had sex…”

“Yeah.  And she didn’t want him sticking his little birdie dickie in some other girlie birdie.”

And just then, a eureka of a realization overcame me:  “OMG, she gave him head.  That’s how birds give head!”

haha. ha. ha.

The lesson: Birds do it.  I bet bees do it.   Why shouldn’t we…umm.

i will never understand how we lost that moment

—you and i—

though it was destined to slip away with the mortal trail of eventual discard,

so soon, too soon (it was and then) no more.

what use is a heart, they say, because it breaks?

i don’t know—it seems i lost mine long ago.

perhaps, if akin to cats, we had nine hearts,

breakage would become like a coffee cup shattered on the floor.

you held me inside you, you did, and i

your only heart swore never to forsake.

I put my ear to your chest and heard the thumping—

thus creature-raptured in our moment of inexpressible partake.

now like drunken Li Po falling, drowning in a faraway lake

while reaching, stretching, embracing a watery reflection of the moon,

so am I transfixed by what of you remains:

a perpetual smile darkening to starlight much (so soon, too soon).