This Morning

I wish man had never gone to the moon.

This world has tenderized me. I am a vulnerable adult. We all are. We are up to our ears in fairy dust and horse shit and monkeyshine and moonbeams.

So let me tell you what I’m looking for. Let me tell you what I want: I want to be stunned. I want experiences that leave me howling with pleasure and wonder at the abracadabrant possibilities of this world. I want to feel my heart swelling in my throat until I’m choking with happiness and gratitude, until I’m reduced to hoarse, hysterical stuttering and laughter.

I want magic. I want to see things that make me doubt my eyes. I want to hear voices. I want the life that is left to me to be pure astonishment, to return me to the epistemological ground zero of the confused and awe-struck child.

I want animals to speak, and I want them to tell the truth.

I want an mp3 of the laughter of everyone I have ever loved.

I want to come home late one night to find my parents slow dancing in my living room to a Jo Stafford record.

I want that hawk that’s been watching me for almost a year to lay its cards on the table.

I want to get my knees dirty, to claw at the earth with my fingers, to feel the sun on my teeth.

I want to give it away, all of it.

I want it all to be a dream, a good one. I want to recognize that that’s exactly what it is.

I want what I really want, what I’ve always wanted, and I want it bad. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted it.

I want to give thanks.

I want to say thank you.

My heart of silk

is filled with lights,

with lost bells,

with lilies and bees.

I will go far,

farther than those hills,

farther than the seas,

close to the stars,

to beg Christ the Lord

to give me back the soul I had

of old, when I was a child,

ripened with legends,

with a feathered cap

and a wooden sword.

–Federico Garcia Lorca, from “Ballad of the Little Square”