i

isn’t that what friends are for? – bruce cockburn
from his cd entitled “breakfast in new orleans dinner in timbuktu”

heavy northern autumn sky
mist-hung forest – dark spruce,
bright maple –
and the great lake rolling forever
to the narrow gray beach

i look west along the red road
of the frail sun
to where it hovers between
shelf of cloud and spiky trees,
receding shore;

the world is full of seasons; of
anguish, of laughter,
and it comes to mind to write
you this:

nothing is sure
nothing is pure
and no matter who we think we
are
everybody gets a chance to be
nothing

love’s supposed to heal, but it
breaks my heart to feel
the pain in your voice –
but you know, it’s all going
somewhere
and I would crush my heart and
throw it in the street
if I could pay for your choice

isn’t that what friends are for?
isn’t that what friends are for?

We’re the insect life of
paradise:
crawl across leaf or among
towering blades of grass –
glimpse only sometimes the
amazing breadth of heaven

you’re as loved as you were
before the strangeness swept
through our bodies, our
houses, our streets –
when we could speak without
codes
and light sworled around, like
wind blown petals,
our feet

i’ve been scraping
little shavings off my
ration of light
and i formed it into a
ball. And each time i
pack a bit more on to it
i make a bowl of my hands and i
scoop it from its secret cache
under a loose board in the floor
and i blow across it and i send
it to you
against those moments when
the darkness blows under your
door

isn’t that what friends are for?
isn’t that what friends are for?