Sanity Way

Sanity Way


And this is the way you carve a path
to sanity.
Take a night for the old places,
the white rooms spattered with paint,
the short naps in the studio
smelling of turpentine
and the illegal whiff of tobacco.

Get up and walk – listening
not for the carping fears
of the witch but for the rustle
of leaves dropping
their spent summer underfoot.

You take sanity back
because it has been stolen.
You take sanity back
with both hands. The same hands
used to offer up your soul.

You take sanity back
by firing the martyr who goes nowhere,
does nothing but guard the fires
of her keepers.

You get up and recreate the places
that pleased you –
the scents of salt and fish,
the slapping slash of flat horizons.
And then, you say, I’m sorry
I left you so long ago.
Is there still a place for me here?