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?