Youth Drum

Photography by Jeff Hart

I am an awful student
of the living–
I prefer hanging around
cemeteries, with
dead poets
Listening to the earth
churn and slide
to the sounds of verses
read aloud
or critters squirming
against black dirt

I am an awful student
of the living–
I delight in the scent of
rotting bark,
smoky leaves and
near-extinct mosses
Unaffected by blooming
flowers, instead I
admire the tumbleweed
who shares its seeds
to eventually fade away
into the eternal wind

I am an awful student
of the living– My mentors lived
once, in the 20th century
I’d stick my head
in a beehive, only to
be closer to the purest
of activities, to the
infectious buzz of
sweet existence

I am an awful student
of the living– Though I’ve got
honeycomb in my lungs,
my heart yearns for
lessons learned
out there on the border,
that blurry line,
where life
meets dying
one more time