The Lancean Specificity
Watching Shooting Stars Fall
My roommate in the lockdown psych ward was an amputee
In a wheelchair and he always wore his hospital gown
While I wore what I wore before to look more like outside
He was inside everywhere and did not know did not care
So it came as no surprise he was as crazy as me
With his troubling little stump below one knee waggling down
That he was mad the other way though he was justified
His fat face up in mine until I got it out of there
He dreamed what was and was not of him had a reunion
His leg came back but came back black the rest white and angry
His long lost limb had come too late his madness was his hate
The lockdown psych ward was a mad and angry place to be
My Grandma was a woman toughened by disappointment
And I the only one who never disappointed her
Which is to say I did not die nor someway else go where
She did not want to as I drove her where she wanted to
And I always gave her a laugh as I gave her a lift
In her fifty year old Chrysler land yacht just as haunted
Then as now and when I lost her I wondered where she went
At first but now I find her in myself a given gift
The Reverend Reavis wept whenever he tried to pray
His sobbing filled his church especially at communion
I was a child and could not yet understand what this was
Since time had not yet taught me some sad things I know today
He gave himself as offering and wept like that because
While wanting badly to do good he found that he could not
Remember who he was and was not and so he forgot
When we want to do good badly this is what good it does
He sacrificed himself and found that he was not enough
Unlike my Grandma disappointment could not make him tough
Neither one went mad like me nor my roommate amputee
Who learned the hard way that was just what we would have to do
And as we regard each other in the mirror we see
Ourselves as we create us making our reality
Reflected in reverse we are being and becoming
And we want to do good badly for all the good it does
As at half past my long lifetime watching shooting stars fall
How when they fall they just keep falling until they fall through
Lessons we are here to learn which take a lifetime coming
I see how going mad is not so crazy after all
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
In a wheelchair and he always wore his hospital gown
While I wore what I wore before to look more like outside
He was inside everywhere and did not know did not care
So it came as no surprise he was as crazy as me
With his troubling little stump below one knee waggling down
That he was mad the other way though he was justified
His fat face up in mine until I got it out of there
He dreamed what was and was not of him had a reunion
His leg came back but came back black the rest white and angry
His long lost limb had come too late his madness was his hate
The lockdown psych ward was a mad and angry place to be
My Grandma was a woman toughened by disappointment
And I the only one who never disappointed her
Which is to say I did not die nor someway else go where
She did not want to as I drove her where she wanted to
And I always gave her a laugh as I gave her a lift
In her fifty year old Chrysler land yacht just as haunted
Then as now and when I lost her I wondered where she went
At first but now I find her in myself a given gift
The Reverend Reavis wept whenever he tried to pray
His sobbing filled his church especially at communion
I was a child and could not yet understand what this was
Since time had not yet taught me some sad things I know today
He gave himself as offering and wept like that because
While wanting badly to do good he found that he could not
Remember who he was and was not and so he forgot
When we want to do good badly this is what good it does
He sacrificed himself and found that he was not enough
Unlike my Grandma disappointment could not make him tough
Neither one went mad like me nor my roommate amputee
Who learned the hard way that was just what we would have to do
And as we regard each other in the mirror we see
Ourselves as we create us making our reality
Reflected in reverse we are being and becoming
And we want to do good badly for all the good it does
As at half past my long lifetime watching shooting stars fall
How when they fall they just keep falling until they fall through
Lessons we are here to learn which take a lifetime coming
I see how going mad is not so crazy after all
+Steven Curtis Lance
Copyright MMX
