max arvo

ESSAYS
FICTION

Redwood Highway to Eureka

2023



We find god in the periphery,

heaven in the space between.



Those small moments are where peace lies,

lies and is found.



They are not what we remember,

but they are that which sustains.



*



Today I lost another loved one

to the world beyond the rearview.



The road turns and what has been could never, never have been,

the road turns and takes our love

into the twilight of the rumor.



*



I want to catch the wonder,

hold the wonder in my hand,

like a dove,

a wounded dove.



It cannot, it cannot, it cannot be caught.



There's the rub of mortal longing,

and the knowledge of expiration.



To seize in amber timelessly

that which redeems the day,

and pain.



*



Lighthouse strobes McKinleyville

and my heart explodes.



Can it be this good?



I wish it were both ours to feel

and never merely mine,

never once more merely mine.



*



Time to sleep again again,

a motel in the trees.



Can it ever be resolved--



To sleep again, and again to dream,

to live inside the dream,

and never once at last again,

and not alone again,

and live the life, the life, the dream,

and live the life

with you--



*



Smell of redwood,

and then the waves.



Lunar tide crashing,

nightwaves silverlaced

and falling.



I just wept again, silently of course,

I am so good at that,

ghostlife in the shade,

so it goes, and goes.



Because it is so beautiful and so filled with peace

such that it hurts,

and I have had the joy of knowing you,

and the wonder there,

the wonder there in you,

and that does redeem the day,

the day and all the pain.



*



If I could hold us here my love my love

I would hold us here forever.



We would know peace.



Our longing then, and all our loneliness,

would be footnote then, for once,

no more the main event.


Tuesday Oct 5 2021