This is the world and I cannot hold it
Like a mother holds a child
Like a lover holds time
I better try grabbing onto the rings of Saturn
Before I try to hold a world
Spinning fast enough to hold us to the ground
Giving our hopes stunted wings
Pulling the sand through the hourglass
With a world spinning so fast you’d think there’d be a roaring wind
And there is, but we’ve got the volume down so low
That mother’s crying cannot be heard over the rustle of father’s newspaper
But I hear the wind
It sounds like I’m jet skiing the slipstream of a 767 en route to the cover of Time Magazine
It sounds like I’m showering in Niagra Falls, but I never get clean.
Like eyes that can’t bear to meet.
Like my small hands trying to catch you before you fall.
It sounds like the breath I take before saying “I think I see God.”
In college, the cafeteria ladies thought I was Jesus
And made sure I got the hot rolls
But they didn’t see me that night when I was so drunk
And the door was locked
And she was just right there
And I made such a mistake
I woke up with the room spinning, the world spinning.
My friends and I swaggered through our college lives
Immortal. We would never say good-bye.
But then a wind started to pick up the leaves, our plans, and our time
Into a swirling dance
Our feet were heavy
And our hands were so small
The world spun faster
Through the endless cornfields of Greencastle, Indiana
Through the deceptive peace of Albany, New York
Broken by a ringing phone.
When I answered
I heard a voice, once so calm,
Breaking like old violin strings
as it told me a horrible lie.
Neal, who was beautiful;
Neal, who had composed music from some dream country I could not even look upon,
Had not made it out of the woods
Somewhere he lay pale and still
Bathed in silent white light.
The secret was out:
One of us was mortal
One of us would only live in photographs and “remember when”
And I realized that none of us were out of the woods yet.
I’m knocking on Heaven’s door
I’m out here with a list of questions that all start with “Why…”
Why doesn’t everyone see You?
Why can’t my hands be bigger?
Why did love and lonliness both have her face?
Why did the phone have to ring that day?
The world spun through Albuquerque, New Mexico
To a house big enough for our silence.
Again, a ringing phone.
I got the call that explained, at the end, my grandmother said she could see Jesus
Or maybe it was her favorite grandchild whose voice she’d never hear again
My wife came home and stood at the opposite end of the room
a thousand miles away
Torn between the bitter chill of our dying marriage
And my warm sobbing for my grandmother who was dead
She compromised with a hand on my shoulder
And the world spun faster
It spins through the girl ahead of me in the checkout line who is the love of my life, but neither of us will ever know it.
It spins through the man who sleeps in the alley so I can waste money on a hamburger I didn’t really want.
It spins through that call I should have made weeks ago to a phone that will never ring again.
It spins through my arrogance and my self-righteousness and my small, small hands.
I’m sorry I could not catch you.
My friends and I used to say “Good-bye”
Now it’s just “Don’t die.”