burning the miles catching up on months and relations missed as we head deeper into the rain-shrouded night for hidden places out of nowhere, resurfacing from long-trodden hours of sleep to morning mountain mists and birdsong and the dear circle of friend, bright beauty rippling outward in all directions, thinking deep about plant slavery while trying to appreciate the beautifully warped specimens in their cages grown for profit and abuse and the sickness felt in them to not be cared and husbanded and loved for their gifts and how many ways we feed ourselves on processes like this without ever thinking of the truths we are ingesting from all the hands involved, talking of Oakland and deserts and betrayals and misunderstandings and New Orleans and heartache and kittens and people we know and pilates or pirates, but not in Somalia, venturing into the land of Buddha to be reminded the treasure is in the practice and the trappings will only weigh you down, peacocks are just svelte exotic turkeys, don’t sell yourself so short dear and for the love of everything you should laugh so easily and often, and onward burning over and through these dear deathly dinosaurs for madcap adventures, returning to rainbow quicksilver skies and seas and a cascade of numbers and skills over this delightfully foreign avenue in the land of don’t know mind future and now past me, still wishing I could just see you and hug you because there’s no real way for words to convey the depth of all this feeling and I want you to know