Less Than, More Than

Where am I going today if I'm going anywhere at all without my soul, that bird with its unreadable, unheard name having wandered off again, convinced that it is more than just a word— do we travel far from each other today?— me in my pre-owned Mazda with my radio full of wasps' nest news, my Peshawar & my Rupert Murdoch, all my guilty Murdochs— my destination like a homestead made of fallen maple leaves, the three leaves that form a tipi tipped together by a 5-year-old's hands, a dwelling place, where if I wanted to I could rest my human rights while my soul travels far from its base, lost for a while on its own highly privatized trip, the idea of living forever an idea that is not an eternity at all for my wanderer but a wish the bird has to fly brocaded by herself within the borders of a tapestry, far from some witch queen's cackle, far from that witch who has disguised herself as a sparhawk woven out of dark thread by a Flemish peasant's hands— how far is too far, you ask?— a little foolishness goes a long, long way, I'd say; a lot drops dead in its tracks.