Dear Lucy

(March 2021. Craggy Wash BLM land near Lake Havasu City, in a makeshift bus and van community. This was written freehand with a dark blue Sharpie marker on one of the steel panels replacing the windows in the bedroom half of my school bus. I had recently painted these panels yellow with Rustoleum to rust-proof them; the plan was to insulate over them before building my walls. But, when I saw the 12 yellow panels, I realized I had never had such a big canvas before. I decided I wanted to fill my bedroom walls with meaning. My amazing friend Nico got me a pack of rainbow Sharpies, and I set aside a day off of bus work to just take acid and enjoy being creative. I spent the day splashing random lines of my favorite poetry all over the walls, giving different panels vibes. I would end up spending the whole year filling in these panels with poetry, and never finishing. It is now 2022 and the panels are still incomplete; luckily I haven’t needed the extra insulation yet. Anyway, after coming down from the trip, but still in that sort of wired post-trip glow, I decided it would be appropriate for me to write an ORIGINAL poem for the bus walls; and, I figured it ought to be a letter to my bus, Lucy. So, I took the marker, and just went for it; no planning, no drafting, no mistakes, no crossouts, just filling in a space with meaning as it comes. To be honest, someone came by and distracted me like 3/4 of the way through, and broke the flow a bit, and you might notice that, but that’s all part of the process baby! It makes it even more real. It’s not a polished poem by any means, just a run-on bit of love for my bus. It is a very Aidan-y poem, for those who know me. I’m including an image I took later that day; before I wrote the poem, I had been using that panel to experiment with this new medium of spatial poetry collage by stitching together some of my favorite Jorie Graham lines, using similar words and themes that interact in different directions. This panel developed more since this moment; one day, when the panel is complete, I’ll include that image. Some things I like about this poem are the way that the physical space impacted the writing; one thing you might notice is at the end it almost seems like it says “red is covered.” I also misspell everywhere as everwhere, and I decided I not only liked that but loved it; everwhere is a great word. Also, the poem seems to sometimes interact with the Graham lines; it also interacts with another panel where I have Emily Dickinson’s “unsuspected violets.” Also, ten points to anyone recognizing the Rebecca Solnit reference.)

Dear Lucy,

I came inside you and knew
I needed to write you a poem.
Here, I found the blue I wanted
Hidden behind our bed (on our ground)
With all our windows and hatches open
With the wind one, and stars around,
I sitting with you here (what was once a window(
With the window to our left, and the waning gibbous
Rising over Craggy Wash, or anywhere, us—
It is good to be blue with our world, to blend into~~
Blessings and blossoms are possible—!
Here, now, locally (the violets!) we can touch SO MUCH!
And we can see! Here, and there!—>
And there, I pulled to by the blue of distance
To everywhere, I can see, and beyond, everwhere equally & differently MUCH
Together, and together we can gather everything, and touch anything touched
By the light… And we the light… Bluer… Out… Bluer… Towards bluest…
All possible spacetime futures are promised by the blue of distance
And we, eye, see, and will be, everwhere together, everwhere Home
Merged in water, breathing sky blue… Oh, running out of space (HA!)
Lucy, I love you. Thank you for this space, silly. I’m glad I found our blue pen 🙂
It’s funny, refinding what fell into the vastness of ourselves— disappeared,
Out of the blue rediscovered.