Good fences have nothing to do with good neighbors.

Recently I drove out of town, alone in my car, headed to the town where I was raised.

In the middle of the afternoon, I accidentally found the entrance of a giant cemetery. I drove inside, stopped near the first beautiful tree, grabbed my camera and walked around a little.

While making the two (following) photographs, someone sent me a poem.

I read it, found it vaguely familiar, liked it somewhat -- and then, much later, realized I had written it!

Three or four years ago I became obsessed with William Kentridge's retelling of the myth of Perseus.

Yeah, yeah, he beheaded Medusa, but in Kentridge's version regularly-fetishized details are backwards or downplayed. In exchange for... Well, in exchange for a focus on this one moment; I'll be succinct(ish):

While competing in a theatrical athletic competition, Perseus throws a discus so far that it strikes the head of a beggar sitting at the back of the stadium and kills him instantly.

Of course, the beggar is actually the King trying to disguise his identity by dressing in rags.

And, of course, the King is actually the grandfather of Perseus.

And, also of course, the Oracle had prophesied that the King's grandson would one day kill him, so he stuffed his only daughter in a castle where she somehow got pregnant by Zeus (who turned into gold for a little while), and then the King had the child packed into a box and shipped out to sea where of course he survived and landed on another shore before growing into a man who, aside from his physical prowess, had learned of his grandfather's actions, had forgiven his grandfather's actions and had traveled back across the world in hopes of reuniting with him.

Before he accidentally killed him.

So apparently I wrote a poem about this, my version of empathizing with a story, you could say. I'm not sure how I feel about sharing this here (considering it needs some serious work), but you may know how much I like being unsure.