Tonight is a freeze.
Fish will sit so very still.
We will skim the leaves.

At four-thirty in the morning,
he sits in his white, cotton
underpants on the edge of

the bed, his flabby body
shifting this way and that,
his gynecomastia (with large,

elongated nipples pointing
downward) spilling out and
resting on a protruding,

distended belly, fat rolling
over the top of his shorts.
Orange hair streams down

his face, over his ears and
around the base of his neck
revealing white, doughy, bald-

ness on the top of his scared
head. He brushes the hair
away from his eyes and eyes

himself in the mirror. He looks
away quickly in utter disgust
and then he angrily grabs his

phone on the bed stand and
goes on a twitter rampage.

I stand,
sometimes run
for the fun,
sometimes step
gingerly,
sometimes
haltingly,
sometimes
hike
quickly,
sometimes
slowly,
sometimes
skip,
sometimes
trip,
sometimes
stall,
sometimes
fall,
sometimes
cycle
rapidly,
sometimes
slowly
all while
journeying
through the
metaphors
and similes
of the forest
and woods
and the trees
(I love to stop
and hug.)
of love’s
eternal
mystery.

We meander along the Magnificent Mile,
take in the sights and people watch.
We duck into a promenade, which strolls
east along the north side of the Chicago
River, stand in front of a corner Walgreens,
look up and see clouds snaking among
the skyscrapers and swimming along the
path of the river. Seemingly all walkers
along Michigan Ave., headed both ways on
both sides of the street, stare at their
phones seeing about as much of the Mile
as the residents of the upper floors of
those mile-high scrapers shrouded in clouds
but who probably would be staring at their
phones even if the sky were clear, the
sun shining and the river glistening.

After we give it up and our nano-
second on the face of the earth is
over and eventually the earth is
restored and other hominoid-like
creatures populate the earth, they
will look at our short tenure and
shrug their shoulders and say
something like, “What a bunch of
dumb clucks,” in a strange dialect
or entirely new language and can
you blame them? From oblivion
you can wish them well.

The mainline institutional sprinklers tried to purge me
of deep grief by metaphorically dunking me
in the name of the Holy Trinity
except they just wanted to get rid of me
and get on with getting on with their
capitalistic inspired religious institutionality.
They had given me —
a year, an institutional generosity,
but I was only hitting on six of eight
when they ran out of patient religiosity
and told me of my fate.
And so I saved them the trouble;
I resigned and amidst all their grumble and mumble,
said I would follow Jesus if that were no trouble.
They said, “Be our guest.”
And, by the grace of God, it has all been for the best.
I have tried to follow Jesus
and they have continued to seek institutional,
evangelical, capitalistic riches and blessings
even though
they were once taught
you cannot serve God and mammon
and they seek to avoid the inevitable, institutional attrition
while I, years and years and years later,
merrily have gone my way on and on and on
and they put millions of dollars switching
the front entrance to the back entrance
making the back the front and the front
a facade which still looks nice but
basically has lost its functionality
except for those few and far between
souls who still walk to worship.

“You have to go north.”
“Maples are turning nicely.”
“Too many dull oaks.”

Frost — in swirls of wind —
teases Indian Summer.
Leaves twist on the trees.

It has been said,
“Everything the Occupant touches dies.”
In the brains of all his walking deadheads
“I can have my cake and eat my fruit pie.”

Say what?
It is also said, “The love of money is evil at the root.”
Are these guys all bolts and lug nuts?
Does that mean the love of money is the deadly fruit?

In the Occupant’s fruit, there is no nutrition.
The walking deadheads can have their fruit pie.
Unfortunately, it leads to life’s attrition
confirming the fact that “Everything he touches dies.”

The courageous gal
testifying on the hill
before all legislators’ eyes
has integrity to spill.

All running for cover are
the hill’s cowardly guys.
Predictably, soon the
Occupant with prying eyes,

will try to demean the gal
with scurrilous lies
and worn out quips like
“She’s a loser — a fake news spy.”