unhabituated: 3:15 Experiment 8/10/05

for the poetry train…

330am aug 19 2005

habituated I guess
is the word for
getting used to

the alarm and
sleeping through it
once and then twice

the night terrors
maybe and maybe
that’s why they get worse
and why they don’t often
terrify me as much
as they used to

last night for example
I woke with a screech
there were large black
ants in the bed
they were after me

you could become habituated
too I suppose to
making love with someone
become so habituated that
you are bored or boring
or both become so
habituated to it as to
not really care to
in the end be a
really terrible lover and
what a crime that would be
to no longer pay attention to
be struck by be moved by
your lover’s scent curves
silkiness

the way your lovers tongue
moves in your mouth moves
you inside moves the
butterflies in your stomach
makes your lips tingle and
your toes curl
to have to remember to breathe

I don’t ever want to
become habituated to
sleep through my lovers embrace
my lovers legs entangle
our thighs scissor together
our arms snug about each other
move feet rubbing together
making fire

you can become habituated to
the breath of a place
but when you
go away to the mountains
you can bury your nose
in a ponderosa to
capture its vanilla scent
sit by a creek and
take in the cool damp air
you can pay attention to the
softness of pine needles
underfoot watch for belly flowers
quiet your voice to hear the
chickadees the hermit thrush

and when you return to the ocean
notice first the air softening
the orange blossoms hanging there
the thickness the heaviness
the denseness of the sea’s
exhalation each time it reaches shore

each day at dusk at sunset
the earth releases its
breath and you can too
the new day starts then
I think with the last
breaths of the old day
and the first breath of
the night

I guess if we can become so
habituated as to no
longer notice something as
important as this as
important as the birds’
morning greetings we can ignore
the injustices we are surrounded
by become habituated to all
the wrongs of the world
give up trying to make right

they say there are 3 kinds of love
infatuation
then something
then habituation

and as we become
habituated we lose all those
lovely feel good days
our brain makes

they say you have to
bring excitement to your life

I see it with the baby
everyday he is so
wildly alive to
everything he encounters