The Mountain Goats

I'm coming home now

to my old friends

My Old Friends

to all my old friends
wherever you are
i wonder what you're doing now
i hope you've found a way to pin down happiness and those temporary things
and the hope in your heart has folded up it's wings
and i hope each day brings you closer
to the people that you are
and i hope in a way it might be true
that that's the same as the people that i knew

i'm sorry when i was younger i was looking out for myself
and i'm sorry when i was younger i thought too much of myself
i wish i could go back and listen to your every word
to show you all i care and to show you that i heard
when i meet new people now it's always a surprise
they always seem to have your smile, your laugh, and your eyes

i'm sorry that i haven't tried harder to keep in touch
and that if we met up to talk there probably wouldn't be much
to say now that would really feel that new
at a certain point it seems we just go on doing the same things that we do
but i hope that each day brings you closer
to the people that you are
and i hope there is some way that it could be true
that you could be even more like the people that i knew

the cicadas

i

when the cicadas
came early
it was not early, the thaw
was already deep

the cicadas
have muscular legs
they will burrow
in the ground
deeper than six feet

the cicadas fly
as if digging their way
through the air
as if
they are always
hoping to hit
something solid

the cicada women
thrust through tree bark to
tuck in their eggs
they work like bankers
all night

the cicadas
come in sufficient numbers
to a place
so that no enemy
has the appetite to eat them all

ii

on the night of the cicadas
i had told you
it is possible
there may be a kind
of permanent
sadness

i went out hurriedly
to mow what i could
of the slickening lawn
in the half-darkness
my mind
became fascinated
with the first line of
"man of constant sorrow"
i sang under my breath
over and over
and the cicadas
pelted my shins
that were wet
and stained bright green
with clippings
when i came back in

i sat down
to tap all this out
for a poem
and my little girl
upstairs
started coughing, crying,
gasping for air, chest
retracting until we could calm her down,
panicked, driving to the ER
changing our minds
because she seemed ok again
sitting up with her and
falling asleep slumped in chairs
with our hands
in each others until they started to get
sweaty and uncomfortable

iii

in the morning
the ground is thick
with cicada skins
they just left
them there
the permanent things

i want to tell my children
try to write
try to pile your words up
for the morning
to shine through
that's all, no other reason
why
and if you find
sometime that you are flying
just let the air
be air

to a turtle, lake valentine

that your kind
has survived
millenia
never fails to bring me hope

it may be
the weight
it is so easy to accumulate
around your soft spots
has its uses

and there is an element
in which it no longer
matters

one thing
you cannot tell
is how to find
the way back out

on your log
that just skims
above the reams of algae
you are ready
at any moment
to slide under
millenia
your kind
has survived, survived

there is no living backwards

love is not
usually wasted
though it may seem lost
there is no living backwards
there is no way
to be less
there is only more of one kind
or another

even the orangutan
who has the best reason to hold tightly
lets go to move
from tree to tree
swimmer of the leaves

let's even be trite: the oyster
who had thought
that life had made a hard place in her
may find eventually some hand will
remove it with one small cut

those that find it easy
to love everything they see
must learn about this
how many of them are so bitter
you could never guess about their
tender hearts.