Photo courtesy of Central Penn College: "The Boyer House"
The thing is
When one ventures from the abode;
That comfortable home in our cranium
That comfortable home in our cranium
What we previously held back,
We tend to, (and tend to see)
The things
that weren’t there before
But always were:
The mossy outcrop where a plastic bag
clings to a twig, and waves as the star spangled banner
of disregard
The fenced line between two pastures
The opposition of juxtaposed ownership
And different aspirations
Hatfields,
McCoys,
…Coy ones in hats
Feuds and friendships
The cables between telephone poles
That traverse the horizon, carrying text
Homes with gazebos, never used
Back porch clutter
Unkept lawns, a garden, a gnome
The thing is
These things make us, tell a story
They show we are here, and we have placed
Something, anything on ground or reached for sky
That we knew we’d never reach
A welcome mat to our homes, hearts, and our minds
The lineage we have
Ingredients for the recipe of me
It’s a cosmic soup, but the past ones
Have such an enigmatic effect, as a dim light
In the Gobi desert of our conscience
The lone spot in barren land
The Unavoidable;
Circus elephants in the room:
The tree line of family.
The thing is
This tree, can be
Elegant, elaborate, laced with royal branches
And pretty leaves
Or low, to the ground, just trying to be
In a world of devour and survive
Recessive, or Progressive
Painful, or Pleasurable
But that’s not the point
Or a tip to wait
The thing is
This beauty and tragedy lies in every entity
All the living and all the dead
There’s poetry, there’s decency
There’s a place to dig deep
and yet
We must respect the lining
The black lining
The white lining
The shade of grey
The thing is
We begin to realize
Eyes go wide, open and unable to slumber
Insomnia lends to obsessive voyeurism
Because beauty and ugliness still wage a war
The thing is
There’s things we don’t know
That we’ll never understand, but strive to
But at the very least
We’re doing to try.
Writing to reach “We.”Me?
That (I think)
Is The Thing.
