{random poetry #85}

[ Keeping Things Whole ]

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

[ The Remains ]

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

Mark Strand

{ because you... you are pleasantly frustrating }

learn who it is within you

who makes everything his own and says,

"my God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body."

learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate.

learn how it happens that one

watches without willing,

rests without willing, becomes

angry without willing,

loves without willing.

Monoimus

{ housekeeping dogs }

“'she can't help it,'
he said
'she's got the soul of a poet and the emotional makeup of a junkyard dog.'”
King, S., in Under the Dome