Orbits, Kellan's birthday, and the gravity of it all

… Orbits, Kellan’s birthday, and the gravity of it all …
Everything orbits something. Everyone orbits someone. The moon orbits the Earth, the Earth orbits the sun, the solar system orbits something bigger. Our lives orbit the day, the week, the year, the seasons. These orbits are all fixed, except the things our lives rotate around. We mark dates, and events and seem to gravitate around them. It starts with our birthday. Each year, like a giant elliptical orbit it approaches and makes its pass and continues out into unknown spaces, until the gravity pulls back closer as that same birth date approaches again, and again. Then we add other dates to our orbits. In the Old Testament they would mark these events with piles of stones or by

… Finding A Less Than Eager Sun …
the west Texas hills roll on and on like the tired wheel of a tired wagon driven by a tired old man they rise and fall eternally like the wheezy breath of an old Indian lying prostrate under the sun my road is winding forever turning here and about – in between his belabored breaths I am heading west and west upon west until my feet and my soul find some respite in the cool Pacific tides trapped on the eastern shore I’ve spent my life watching the eager sun rise each day without wane soon I will watch her tired eyes lower as she kisses the horizon before plung

… sunset on the Pacific …
a round drop of lava hangs suspended no wavering no movement just an invisible descent and without warning the sullen horizon opens its eager mouth, letting loose a fanfare of pink and orange and red and gray and the perfectly round orb receives an edge and dips lower cut in half then more slices fall then just a teardrop of brilliant light balancing itself on the edge of the world is snuffed out leaving only the dimming remnants of a day that will never, ever happen

… go west my boy …
“Go West, my boy.” I hear my granddad say two years from beyond his grave so I pack my things and run West, through bayous plains, mountains, and deserts chasing the slippery sun through ever expanding skies wider and wider they stretch America opens herself up to me and lets me look inside the secret forgotten places and finally I catch the West and reach my hand into the shores and pull up a fistful of sand and I watch as it sifts through my fingers each grain vanishing in the breeze and I find the boundary. the end of the West and the start of th