Earth smells like you

there is a distinct community nestled in the nooks and crannies of downtown atlanta. i love these people, and i love their pads, but they are always trying to get me to come to their place while i am drawing them out to the places where words are drawn out. atlanta is good and all, but i find myself losing myself in pretending that i'm not myself when i find myself lost in atlanta. wrap yourself around that one. sitting in another posture is fine too, even getting lost in one, but i'd rather be lost in the demeanor undetermined by the approval of 14-year-old girls pretending to be 21, and frowning at anyone that doesn't smoke with them. i'd rather be lost in the person that is nature warmed over, rather than human relation chilled dead.

just got back from the upper chattahoochee river campgrounds past helen, and it already seems like a dream. the fog in the morning that repelled the sunlight, the dark evergreens that smelled like christmas: slide across the floor on your long socks, christmas morning. the weakened chattahoochee river that tickled the smooth stones, that made the primitive site that we chose and which retreated from the road, dropping twenty feet in elevation, drop twenty degrees in temperature.

i took these few shots of time and space to remember:

and i decided to write a poem. which i haven't done in over 6 months. so don't expect much.

Upper Chattahoochee

The twang of Brown, like salt and pepper

basil and exotic spice, right here

Sweet earth infects me like incense

emitting poison, just the right bite 

The Christmas tree showing her true color

overtaking my deepest anxiety 

Brings Christmas morning, slide across the floor

Socks on hardwood, warm

Dark bark roughest scratch, scratching my ankles 

Deep green thud, on my soul

On my soul, I found years of inhaling earth

On my lungs, I found years of spiritual damage

AWOL on my body, just for a moment 

To let the trees speak

To hear the Chattahooch pick 

Some kinda trick

So cold, I feel the spirit chill my bones

My toes retreat from the river

A stone in my palm wont fit in my mouth

I cannot pocket the beauty

Longing like a downhill run

the haunt of evergreen

And the sadness of silence

makes me long for the warmth of a woman