He hunches alone behind
His gray beard
From Idaho
He hasn’t read any best sellers
He dresses in shades
That make gray
Look like a rainbow
His name is a name
Out of a brief story
About someone whose
Jump off
A trestle
Instantly erased him
Ssst
But every night
At exactly 3:00
He floats out of bed
On his back
Lifts the open sash
And sails up into the waiting sky
Smiling at the stars
He stops at the same place
In the sky
Gathers his wits
Smiles tenderly
At the constellations and
With one flick of his little finger
Fires himself into
The fragrant gap
Between the
Honeyed lips of time
GARY LINDORFF, TCBH!’s resident poet, is an artist, musician, poet and counselor / dream-worker who practices shamanic techniques, and who lives in rural Vermont with his wife Shirley and two dogs. His website is BigDreamsWeb. (This poem was inspired by reading about the untimely death of Occupy Oklohoma City’s Street Poet)