He does not comically rise above
circumstances,
not a one.
He does not rise.
This Mississippi was his metal,
browned, not bronze,
not copper, certainly
no gold prospected.
Mud.
Mudmetal.
And before that, some hatch,
or creekbottom
named
for a farmer
dead now years,
land gone to disuse
or worse, road.
Haunted, you and I,
by what we cannot (not
have.
You, what you do not know,
and I, you.
Here’s toil.
Some labors of device
unfulfilled. Tend
gardens of recovery
what he does not know.
Air curves back
to laugh
at the footing
he tried to hold.
Without song, no
awkwardly fallen
hero.
No acts of bravery
in the life led
not well.
But led all
the same.
Without lesson.
Not every
one
matters.
It’s hard but true.
Not one
ever now
or then makes
a difference
by their passing
through.
Creekbottom is a slog
of vine and
growth un-
tended in.
That’s life.
Water here, rock,
all of the sources
of beauty some
where,
but here,
it is slog.
It is home.
Without this hole
the frogs would
find another
hole.
Without this tree
the birds would
find another
tree.
Without this river
water would find
another way
to the sea.
That’s water.
That’s our cycle.
Air curves to
laugh
at our meagerness,
and we can’t hear
it. It’s air.
By the way,
he did not tragically fall
below
his circumstances
either.
They and he,
simply were,
there.
© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved
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