How many more times?

 

I have survived almost drowning in a hole of muddy sluiceage, maybe that ain't a word so let us do that because 

I seen it

 I was in it 

don't tell me no.

Once, truly naked and alone, too dumb to feel fear, alone I ventured onto a rocky ledge above the Middle Fork of the Eel River with a fifty pound pack on my back, I was a kid, Fifty feet up and I just slipped a little, leaned in instead of out and did not fall. No one would have ever heard from me again, no one knew I was out there in the Yolly Bolly but me and whatever keeps letting me live.

later, that very year

I was 18, had some bread, and got a motorcycle, a fucking 850 Norton one, I didn't die on the wall over the river but I almost hit two coming down Moody Road at fifty, missed me again

 I'm crazy, born so said my mother

Should I detail them, all the times buddha did not turn his head for me 

I understood 

 I still do, we come and we go

no one knows why

 I have heard, 

so

 listen up, pay attention, perfect a profitable skill, do no harm, help all you can

and then, someday, you get to take off

if you are cool, it's nice, make a rational decision to stop

after that, we'll see

Jerry Garcia often spoke of how fortunate he was to not have to go get a job in a gas station.

I, naturally, feel differently myself and now must head out to the one I work at

yep, way down there

I do not know what kind of shape the Yolla Bolly is in today, but I would like to go there again and go swimming