The View From Scranton

Poison Oak

It begins with a whisper. A quiet rasp back to a childhood, to a childhood hero. The kid who dragged. The kid who dared. The kid who turned away from a no place. The kid who slammed the door on a fallen face. The kid who stole and forged and left.

The kid who got away.

The brave one. The one with enough guts to inspire. The one with enough guts to provoke. The one with guts enough to put his life at life's mercy. Simply so that he could live. Simply so that others could live with him, through him, after him, beyond him.

We all have those kids in our pasts, even if we are those kids. We all have those kids within us, even if we don't dare to bare their soul. Some of us still are those kids, risking and itchy and foolish and true. As a child it's considered imaginative, at adolescence it's called flighty, for a period between late teen and early twenty it's celebrated, past that it's deemed irresponsible. Unless past a certain age, when it becomes eccentric.

Here it's celebration. Love. Always. And there is no age limit. There is no limit. Are none. Possibility does not allow for such small. Ever. It takes real resolve to remain rash and reckless in this world; the rash and the reckless are this world's real resolute. Taut. Like the wind. Honor.

Awe. At the feet of such great he's but a particle, dust, aflutter. Alit by recollection. The hiss of a drowned moment, the singe of swallow's last gasp. Where once there were flowers, dreams, hopes, now there is mud. Tears.

Sheds, words evaporate. The steam of reason. Inspiration's ether. Seeps into the skin, spreads, that rash again. The body gets covered, coated, hived with chilled warm. And all that love and awe and cry breaks. The voice cracks into a know. Connects. This is just what the witch doctor ordered.

From then on it's nothing but freedom. The statuette crumbles, the elixir flows, piano keys reverse the way. Down is the new up. Sad is the new happy. Transcendence. From the bottom of a welling unwell.

He calls himself Bright Eyes, his song is Poison Oak, and it is anthem.

posted by John Hood. @ 9:24 PM