Do you ever feel
What?
Where are the right words?
The words of not self-doubt exactly
Not imposter syndrome exactly
…
Wait
Perhaps I dismiss that too easily

In a world of academics
Who treasured the memories
The robed colors
The teachers and mentors
Some now famous
At least in the circumscribed specialty world
That was almost all their world
In that world
I was always an imposter
To myself

My value of those achievements
Never what was expected

Now, as that world recedes ever further
My universe expands
While seeming to contract
Ah, the beauty of the unknown unoccupied spaces
Between starry pinpointed lights

Ah, the relaxation as I surrender
Willing captive to that spaciousness
That empties me

And yet, again, into that delicious emptiness
Flows the ego’s certainty
I stumble where others glide
A skater on thin ice
A turkey among ducks
A plodder in my depleted soul
A blind person with delusions of vision
I am but an imposter
I do not belong

These are the thoughts
The feelings
The certainties
The dangerous aliens
All too familiar
That would crowd out the starlight

The whistle of a bird
The slant of sunlight through the trees
The still-soft hairs on his old man’s arm
The almost burnt richness of fried plantains
The spicey smell of garam masala

But also
The death of my brother-in-law
Sweeping up after a shedding dog
Surveying the unexpected disorganization of my kitchen
The bone aching insistent tiredness at the end of a day
Of doing nothing

The long years behind
The ever shorter road ahead
Sweltering in passion’s bright light 
Through criss-crossed branches of dim trees
As the road twists out of sight
Bringing me ever closer
To a grave vineyard of plump poetry
Ripening under the greening branches of love

Can you feel it?
Just a bit more gentleness
A bit more kindness
A bit more stubbornness 
Released from failing flesh

To fall
Like a soft steady downpour 
Over our parched world.

Gordon and Ernie
Brothers-in-law
Brothers in death
Brothers in gentleness
And in stubbornness.

Bodies die.
Love lingers…
And spreads