MY NAME


MY NAME


is Jonathan Sparos 

but a red-bearded
red-eyed trucker out of
Victorville California

where desperate hitchhikers
have been known to
peel off their sunburns
swallow their pride and
take the bus out of town

thought it a good name
but a stuffy handle
musing between gear shifts
and some excellent weed

that if I wanted to take
Mother Earth for my God
or Daddy Desert
or the wolf-heart Moon
then I really ought
to find myself
a totem

some creature whose heart
recalls where human
minds once wandered
when first we began to
scratch our way from
the wild places
from the short
bloody life within

using the magic of
First Fire and First Plow
and that endless melody
begun when we set our
souls on fire with the great
bone rattling banshee holler
of First Word

until finally
after generations of
building the tools that
built our mechanical slaves
carving out a measure of
culture and creature comfort
in the civilized places

like Victorville

where wildness lives on only
in the rush of fast cars
or sloe gin
and truck drivers
serve as philosophers
having scratched the world
beyond the town to

find the wild places
still waiting for us
or perhaps only for
a forgotten word

So I took him up on it
I think somewhere 
after our second joint
but the really
boss animals had
already been taken

Over the years
the twenty before and
all the rest since
I have met a Greywolf
a Redwolf
a whole pack of Lonewolves
a Snake
a Bear
whose music growls low
a Buffalo
a Dolphin
an Eagle or two
the occasional Raven
who loves to squawk
and as many Cats as
there are spines on
a jumping cholla cactus

But never have I
met one of the
best of all survivors
the Sky Children

the small and the quick
growing fat from
rustling about where
giants cannot tread

and every bold
Knight of the Road
even those who brag
of beating down
the whole world with
its own pomp and rage

must someday learn to
live small and quick
no matter how
strong or wealthy
or well named

for the world shall
ever be stronger
more ruthless
and full of
giants

So when
that trucker and I
parted the ways as
travelers often do
like comets passing
in a void of chance

I kept that new handle
or rather let others
keep it for me

(and later you will hear
more about the others)

through every
highway and alleyway
dirt path and far horizon
of this mad sad merry
roving Pagan road
following the trails
of migrating birds and
the secrets whispering
beneath my footsteps
on the long walk home

His name was
McNally Jones

Happy trails
Johnny Sparrow
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