Smoke in the trees and
in the eyes. From a tire sparks
fly; the place in flames.
By midnight we’re packed.
We leave at dawn. Good to go,
we sing at bedtime.
Are we made for life
on the road outside the di-
vine immanence? Free-
ly given to it?
From the source? Sleep comes just as
dawn breaks. Time to go.
Author: Tom D'Evelyn
Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.
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Metaxyturn Diaries 
A beautiful valediction, Tom.
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Jolting imagery of fire makes the reader stop and look. We are on the edge not just of here nad there or here and hereafter but also of being and not-being. And as we look perhaps it comes to us that we are not so much on the edge as in the middle. The fire , times of sleep and readiness, the surprise of the moment when it’s time, all situate us as readers in passage. Perhaps instictively we claw at time, at what we want to accomplish, at who we think we are. Yet this passing, these images that turn us to it, should remind us to let be. And this is not ‘being passive’ or betraying the urgency of justice. It is being true to what we are–we cannot here know who we are really–and only in doing this can we take part in meaningful action and in meaning-making being. So it is time to go and the going is very good.
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