Pushing Water 70: IPod Revery

for Barbara Henning

                                    I’ve learned to tell the truth sometimes . . .
                                    I’ve learned to tell the truth most the time . . .
                                    I’ve learned to tell the truth all the time . . .

— Samantha Crain, “Taught to Lie”

the air pulses wet and thick though
it is not raining

at the beginning of a run with
recordings through headphones

Barbara Henning reads “On
Cole’s Island” by Charles Olson

and then reads “The Librarian,”
and the books are leaning

out of the shelves and the presence
of water around the island

is not quite equal to the presence
of water in the air though still

no rain comes from the top of
the sky above as Jimi Hendrix

now wails with “Purple Haze”
and in the library Olson and

Hendrix are both present and
I know one is monumental

and one is taller but at this
moment I can not say which

while the air around me now
forms a mesh of water (still no rain)

and Van Morrison sings “Warm
Love” and the water and the

notes are everpresent every
where and Olson and Henning

are ever
present
every
where

as the wheels and the sky
turn but no rain comes

and Neil Young sings “Blowin’ In
the Wind,” and I am running through

something between humidity and
rain in the every morning in the every where.