I am clarity & confusion -- poem recited on air 10.8.12

I am clarity & confusion

I am life chasing death

I am delight & depression

I am an oil & water mix, up & down, optimist & pessimist

I am daisy-dancing butterfly-chasing supernatural sunrise agape

I am 45 years of adventure & addiction, fighting gravity & finding grace

I am rainy-day Monday mood-swing into melodramatic misanthropy

I am too much yes & not enough no but give as I go & live anything but slow

I am urban hiking at Cane Creek & Ensor Sink no matter the season

I am recycling & bicycling & hybrid car

I am tossing yesterday’s compost into the yard

I am watching the weeds grow

I am cooking breakfast, foraging dinner, consulting cookbook, chopping garlic for pesto or baba ghanouj

I am hot chili on a cold night

I am the first Thursday in October craving the fallen leaves

I am the feast of St. Francis

I am the first Friday in October watching my friends perform Macbeth in the park

I am the first Saturday in October & the onset of autumn chills

I am the first Sunday in October making blueberry cornmeal pancakes for my baby

I am okay that the Christmas decorations have been out at Hobby Lobby & Goodwill since Labor Day

I am that guy who leaves the little white Christmas lights up all year

I am “Ballerina” by Van Morrison

I am “I Will Wait” by Mumford & Sons even though I hate waiting

I am every U2 song ever released

I am John Lennon, Bono, & Martin Luther King Jr.

I am making mixtapes for a million Monday nights

I am wearing headphones in a crowded room

I am a Yankabilly, adopted southerner, a Midwestern city boy lost in a Tennessee college town

I am not ashamed of loving sports or of my Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago roots

I am repeating “to be” verbs like a broken alarm clock screeching

I am sadly a “to be” verb wishing for action inside the noun of reality

I am asterisk & ampersand

I am period & semicolon

I am catching comma splices for a paycheck

I am teaching not because I know but because I am spilling ink & imagination just to find out

I am insomniac inspiration

I am a morning so early that it meets the end of your night

I am up at 2am when I know I should be slumbering in your arms

I am caffeinated aggravated dilapidated but not sedated

I am afraid of how much I’ll eat when Ben & Jerry’s is on sale at the local Kroger

I am expresso shots not whisky shots

I am Jack Kerouac & Jim Morrison thirsty but abstaining anyway

I am Jimi Hendrix & Kurt Cobain if they’d lived to see recovery

I am not hungover but still remember the faded sweet-sour taste of Pabst Blue Ribbon on my tongue

I am not drinking just for today but the veil between me & intoxication remains forever thin

I am sober but still crazy

I am chillin but not lazy

I am dry but still high on life

I am crying at movies & weeping at concerts

I am Saturday love & Sunday romance

I am Jeannie’s husband never cured of cuddling snuggling forever love

I am writing every poem about Jeannie or Jesus while under the influence of java

I am walking with her, eating with her, dancing with her, sleeping with her

I am cards & chocolate, flowers & poetry

I am the waning of the week

I am the naming of the meek

I am shouting with my smile

I am daring to my knees

I am unafraid but still experience fear

I am still carrying a silent megaphone & an empty sign to the protest at end of the galaxy

I am in the war & against the war that rages in my belly

I am disturbing the peace that pounds in my chest

I am a solar amphibian flopping from lily pad to laser beam 

I am that Jesus Freak ex-hippy who went back-to-the-land

I am Godspell & Jesus Christ Superstar & Hair

I am YouTube concerts by all my favorite bands

I am Almost Famous, We Bought a Zoo, & all six Star Wars installments

I am loving my enemies on my better days

I am wishing the worst in a dry drunk haze

I am peacenik tree hugger yet not vegetarian & also TV-watching omnivore

I am civil rights for all my kin, no exceptions for when even one sister or brother loses nobody wins

I am Catholic Worker but not Catholic

I am Presbyterian but only occasionally Calvinist

I am Buddhist & Jedi & Taoist & Rumi-reading extra-ecumenical

I am “try not—just do”

I am still looking for you

I am right & I am wrong

I am ready for something different

I am satisfied with more of the same
I am loneliest when I am hungry

When I am wanting, I am still filled beyond need

I am Saturday morning sermon-writing

I am Saturday evening rocking-out

I am preaching not because I am saved

I am preaching because the sin didn’t silence me

I am in love with the possibility of impossibility

I am in love with a lost wreath of flowers

I am in love with dancing barefoot in the grass

I am burning suns & setting moons

I am pursuing a peace that passes understanding

I am seeking God in a place called everything

I am softly kissing you on a planet called everywhere

Watch a video of Andrew reading this poem:
https://youtu.be/DYroctr9vZA