Paradise Valley Suite for Franziska on her thirtieth birthday I A wash of wheels across the way Across the wash where the road washed away Where flashing lights warn silently Sounds like an ocean occasionally With wheels in motion riding to Tidings of a rising tide coming through Surprisingly the ocean in The motion of wheels beginning to spin Having lived by the sea I see The sound of it found and remembers me Understanding me with nary Any ocean unimaginary Recalling it all like I do Because it was once in the desert too And sand around me far and near Resounds to the sound of the waves found here In washes of wheels anyway The sound comes redounding from yesterday Every now and then like a sigh When a wave comes in when a car goes by On the Twentynine Palms Highway Across from the Hi-Desert hideaway II Paywalled at the Times that time of The month when something I love Gets hard to get to when they get Hard on who has not paid yet Not letting in someone like me Without a subscription now Not having me getting away With without having to pay Not having paid but having strayed Having stayed too long afraid They know who we are who have not Paid who strayed too far and how This month got hard and I cannot Pay for what I did before I got in but not anymore Not with more month than money They sell me tell me pay up but I wait for the wall to fall On the first of the month to be In time at the Times for free Marching right in no matter what Past the shortest month of all Along about now not funny Cutting me no slack I see Paywalled and stalled as I have been Done in when I try again To read one letting me read ten Stories no more getting in The paywall got me not to let Me in to test the limit Of free of me very wary The rest of February III Insider gone outsider doubting about It out there outside it all inside out Because where I found my way out here was in When I wondered what then but now said when You get now you get it how to let go then When then is ending so now may begin Getting now is how I got to letting go Letting go is how I know life goes on Betting what is left on love now having gone Insider outside it all I recall My way out to go in to know what I mean Being or not seeing what lies between Having gone to go on having gone too far To ever return to never I know Having seen always turning in the shadow Outsider inside it all after all Out wondering under a wandering star I think I know where you go (here you are) Gone all the way having fallen through a crack Of always to love and never go back Resisting not being insistingly free Gone on to become having come to be Seeing I exist being persistingly (And wandering star you understand me) Having to be having not having been To always be now like I never was then Steven Curtis Lance