Bringing Psyche Home

During the day I walk around the sun

Counting steps like some longitudinal

Freak, mainly on my fingers bent

With age, a condition named after

A famous French surgeon, Baron

Dupuytren, who has been known

To show up in my dreams with a knife

Begging me to straighten up.

.

I have become fond of the Baron

And his iterations and often look

For the doctor at night in those shadowy

Corners of my compass when one side

Of my percolating brain has celestial

Yearnings and the other side desires

A more simply route, a sea-level

Dwelling, closer to ground zero.

.

Then my psyche seems to show

Her hand, brushing aside the daylight

Stock of Olympian bits and bytes,

With what seems to this old sailor

As semaphore signs for ZWC,

Meaning a confidential code to follow

For those on watch, those at sea.

.

My descent is through language

And structure, bumping into syntax,

Uttering snarl words under my breath.

I now seem to be more focused

Aware that I must stay in my lane

Decry the decorations and interjections

That float in patterns above my head.

.

I now reside in a subject/object world,

Above the fray, wary of indulgent

Adjectival flourishes, reading the sea

Surface as compass and promise,

A salutation for those in the same boat

That seems to invite a chorus

Not from some mountaintop

But ground zero, Mother Earth

Where I bump into brothers and sisters

Coming down the language tree

As we move past elevated statues

Honoring the other, distant gods

To an alluvial plot where we bury

Martial talk and cover with seeds

That promise to bring the psyche home.