Someone out there should know where they're going
A condition of the mind: Phoenix,
the act of, the portrait of, rising from ash; rebuilding
after destruction, rejuvenation in flame, and yet
Arizona failed me in a state capital bee.
Maybe that’s all geography is,
places only the mind will visit
as they collect themselves with ash-sweeping brooms
to spread their wings later and depart.
I’ve wondered this since the fourth grade
but remembered it recently because I can never recall
the capital of Morocco: not Fez or Aziz. Are those even
real places? Rabat seems counterintuitive
but when I couldn’t differentiate between Indiana
and Illinois on a blank United States map I knew
much like the jalopy that sits in the parking lot at the Grand Canyon,
ashtray near to overflowing, my intuition needs a tune-up.
The tourists left their broom in Flagstaff, or was it Tucson?
I am a poor, wayfaring stranger
a-travelin’ through this world of woe
In any case, I still don’t know what those green and tan circles are
below me as I gaze at them from the airplane window.
My mind likes to organize them into landing sphere-zones for phoenixes.
But there’s no sickness, toil, or danger
in this bright world to which I go