Meadowlarks

Too much time

alone today.

Solitude is great.

It makes the mind

clear and gets one

thinking again.

It also makes you feel

a little like a lazy bum.

A little like you've never

contributed anything to society ever

(which, in reality, you probably haven't).

So read with all the blinds pulled

and get all bleary eyed because

you're dumb enough to read in the dark

after writing 647 words of prose

while blaring Fleet Foxes

because the silence is eerie

but the television noise too clinical.

There aren't any birds to listen to.

So you substitute Robin Pecknold,

vocal harmonies, and many guitars.

The simulation works

and you write about a man who

has decided to give up his life for two weeks

and go live in the woods,

he's excited to breathe the air

you'll never get to yourself.

He has to do this for you,

he has to whisper "hello's" to the seas

and the mountains and the expressways

because you can't.

Because you're alone in a big house

with no birds

and no conversation.

You feel like a tenant who

doesn't fit in,

a housekeeper or a nanny

or something that doesn't feel

like human. You miss the rustling

of leaves in a large stand of trees,

the twinkling laughter of barn swallows.

It shows in your eyes,

and that's alright,

because all the blinds are pulled

so even the most unlikely stray eye

can not tell that "Oliver James" has

made you tear up, like

it sometimes will.

It's alright,

because you don't know anybody named Oliver James

who may or may not have been abandoned in a river as a baby.

The prose is ok,

it's the first you've written in a long time,

a long time like months and months

because you write poetry,

not prose.

But a part of you really loves prose.

And another part of you is just scared

of the Sylvia Plath Effect.

But this guy going camping is real.

He's pretty happy

and you know he likes bread and jam,

you wrote about that in the first paragraph.

You may not be real,

because you're paper-thin alone

like this, on a beautiful day

that makes you want to say a

"thank you" to the sun god,

but this man without a name is real,

he took the place of you for

forty-five minutes.

He thought for you,

and made nice little sounds

and even said "hello" to Aurora

for you, because you missed her

on her rosy-fingered descent this morning.

You wonder if tomorrow you'll be more motivated.

You assume not, it always feels this way.

So you go on and eat waffles and

play guitar (learn a whole song)

and then read again.

Feeling a little hollow,

but you know, it's ok,

because we're all a little hollow,

and sometimes trees are, too.

And trees are usually doing just fine.

So you write an obscenely long blog post about

nothing and everything

in a philosophical stance.

You then wonder if he really thinks you talk to much.

You assume the answer is a resounding "Yes."