In California

My heart became a drunken runt

On the day I sunk in this shunt,

To tap me clean

Of all the wonder

And the sorrow I have seen,

Since I left my home:

My home, on the old Milk Lake,

Where the darkness does fall so fast,

It feels like some kind of mistake

(just like they told you it would;

Just like the Tulgeywood).

When I came into my land,

I did not understand:

Neither dry rot, nor the burn pile,

Nor the bark-beetle, nor the dry well,

Nor the black bear.

But there is another,

Who is a little older.

When I broke my bone,

He carried me up from the riverside.

To spend my life

In spitting-distance

Of the love that I have known,

I must stay here, in an endless eventide.

And if you come and see me,

You will upset the order.

You cannot come and see me,

For I set myself apart.

But when you come and see me,

In California,

You cross the border of my heart.

Well, I have sown untidy furrows

Across my soul,

But I am still a coward,

Content to see my garden grow

So sweet & full

Of someone else's flowers.

But sometimes

I can almost feel the power.

Sometimes I am so in love with you

(Like a little clock

That trembles on the edge of the hour,

Only ever calling out "Cuckoo, cuckoo").

When I called you,

You, little one,

In a bad way,

Did you love me?

Do you spite me?

Time will tell if I can be well,

And rise to meet you rightly.

While, moving across my land,

Brandishing themselves

Like a burning branch,

Advance the tallow-colored,

Walleyed deer,

Quiet as gondoliers,

While I wait all night, for you,

In California,

Watching the fox pick off my goldfish

From their sorry, golden state--

And I am no longer

Afraid of anything, save

The life that, here, awaits.

I don't belong to anyone.

My heart is heavy as an oil drum.

And I don't want to be alone.

My heart is yellow as an ear of corn,

And I have torn my soul apart, from

Pulling artlessly with fool commands.

Some nights

I just never go to sleep at all,

And I stand,

Shaking in my doorway like a sentinel,

All alone,

Bracing like the bow upon a ship,

And fully abandoning

Any thought of anywhere

But home,

My home.

Sometimes I can almost feel the power.

And I do love you.

Is it only timing,

That has made it such a dark hour,

Only ever chiming out,

"Cuckoo, cuckoo"?

My heart, I wear you down, I know.

Gotta think straight,

Keep a clean plate;

Keep from wearing down.

If I lose my head,

just where am I going to lay it?

(For it has half-ruined me,

To be hanging around,

Here, among the daphne,

Blooming out of the big brown;

I am native to it, but I'm overgrown.

I have choked my roots

On the earth, as rich as roe,

Here, down in California.)