Tonight may be my final performance so I skipped over several darker verses to share something hopeful. These words have seldom been shared. This is really less verse than an accurate historical recounting of a brilliant fall day circa 1981 in the NC mountains. Our two protagonists are quite real, and while some scholars debate the accuracy of the exact wording of the conversation that ensued, I would remind you that physicists themselves are uncertain as to what is real and what is illusion. Seeing and touching do not reality make, and what is not seen or felt has transformed the universe. I would submit reality is truth, and truth comes in many forms . . . My tiny friend has long since passed, but I would challenge the dubious to hear his words and judge them on their merit:


The Fly on the Mountain

A brilliant sun fought hard to heat the mountain breezes,
And my climbing bike sang out a song of raw power;
Sucking in the lofty air, leaning hard into the curves,
Flesh and metal, she was my lone conspirator...

On a switchback there it loomed above us -
The biggest damned thing that I had ever seen.
I had to climb that mountain to see from there above;
To taste the might and majesty, the beauty crystalline.

Slicing off the highway and cutting up a trail,
Though made for other purposes, my mount she did excel.
Then the path turned into trees, and I went on alone,
My heart was snared, by what my soul could not foretell.

At last I reached the lofty peak, and on it a great rock,
My pack unslung, I sat down there to look upon the world.
I rolled myself a hogleg of fine Columbian Gold,
Well aged bourbon chased the smoke as the world unfurled.

Time was passing nicely, as I watched the earth,
The land went on forever, and the clouds were within reach;
Until at last there came a buzzin' around my airy perch -
And the drone went on forever although I did beseech...

Then a thought - though crazy - he might want to share,
And so I blew some smoke his way as he flitted ‘bout my hair...
My friend did seem to like this, it calmed his furious flight,
He sat right down beside me, now easy to forbear.

Knowing the feel of cottonmouth, I looked down at my pal,
And sure enough he did seem parched - though it was hard to tell.
We found a crevice in our rock, and filled it with some nectar,
Kentucky's finest there before him, his thirst he did soon quell.

That done I turned back to the world, to contemplate my life,
But then a voice did come to me, though faint it was quite clear;
"I'd like to thank you for your kindness, most folks wouldn't care,
If you could what would you ask of a minute mountaineer?"

Now I've always had an open mind, but this struck me as quite queer,
Still, I'd always heard that wisdom was on the highest mountain found.
So I turned into my deepest heart, and touched upon its pain,
"What is real, and what is not, in this life's grisly battleground?"

I discovered tears falling from my face, at this I was surprised,
The door opened, I shook and moaned, and listened for the words.
"In you the river of all rivers, runs close there to the surface,
But your question - you want to know what it is that this life undergirds?"

"Three things are real - three things alone - in this the world you see.
All else is illusion. The first is matter, swirling atoms, these are you and me;
We are everything, but we are nothing, we are just alike,
No intrinsic value here, just some cosmic aberrancy...

The other two, there's the crux, so simple but complex,
The reason for the rhyme, the seed for all life's songs.
All that remains is love, and then the lack thereof;
For these the fragile heart does beat, the river to them belongs..."

"You lie to me, my newfound friend, we must be more than that;
What of our intellect, our words, the poetry we write..."
"You lie only to yourself, my child, you speak of intellect?
The rock we sit on knows more than all who walk upright.

"The only true knowledge is that there is so little known...
Electro-chemical flatulence!" With this he gave a laugh.
"Name the poem not born of love - or the pain of its absence.
And words! They are hardly fit for mankind's lowly epitaph.

I came down from the heights above, so that I might speak to you,
Most words are empty, vibrations in and lost upon the air.
People prattle to comfort themselves, more than anything;
The buzz of humans - with anything so plentiful, beware.

"Words are less than dreams if they're not acted on...
Shakespeare wrote not one word - he wrote love,
And his love moved generations, even heaven up above;
Love is real, and it means more than the dust we are made of..."

I sat amazed at my small companion, yet tears still fell like rain.
He said, "The window's closing soon, our time here is short.
Like most you don't say what you mean, you dance about the point,
I'll try to help with this deep pain, some hope to you export.

I cannot see the future's hand, I only know what is,
The eyes you see when you close yours in the early morning.
Those that pursue you are the darkness, antipathy of love,
And then the eyes that you pursue, it's too late now for warning.

The flower from the garden, strongest light of love,
In those eyes you'll lose yourself, the darkness falls away.
She said she'd always love you - that she would walk through fire.
These words that you believed led you down an alleyway.

Little hope for you I hold, it saddens me to say,
But you must still pursue the love, the light of fading day.
You are of the light and love, despite the disarray.
Follow your heart no matter what, from that path do not stray.

My last advice to you my friend, lover of the words,
Speak only words of substance, words you will support;
Say nothing that you do not mean, sweet lies cut the deepest,
Absence of love in sight of love will make your soul contort..."


With this my friend took flight, he left me there alone.
And darkness fell upon me, as my loss I did bemoan.
I closed my eyes and saw her there, that which was the real,
I left the mountain and took up quill, to those eyes once more appeal...