Steve GannOld Friends
March 16th 2007 11:04
As my head touches the pillow
I leave behind
Images of glass and steel
Megapixels
Clawing upwards in futility.
Now falling inwards
Invisible to the passing observers
Inviolate to the light.
Emerging at last on familiar shores
With a sense of strange but familiar
Patterns from who knows when.
Here the pace is country
Relaxed - our journey done
The road populated by low stone fences
Dandelions, clover, grass that
Gathers at the knee --
A cow musing contentedly.
This ramshackle run ends at the crossroads
Before us, almost in apology,
Stands the dilapidated wall
Proclaiming past glory.
The faded images of
The provedore
The meeting place
The general store
Drinks to quench our thirst
Material blankets, clothing worste
Flour, confectionary and with compassion
Powders for the pain -- the ache of vanity.
Coming to grips with this fragility --
Reminding us again
That in this, we too, are mortal.
The door swings open
Straining on the hinges
As out of the shadow he
Comes towards us
Trying to shield himself from
The assault of the evening sun.
He shows no obvious smile
But still somehow there is a glint
An expectation that
At any moment his face will break open
Like a ripe melon.
His boots are dusty, broken worn
Comfortable like the moleskin pants
In places patched and hitched -
The shirt a heavy calico
Once green now faded
Underarms painted with lines of sweat.
Leaning forward peering beneath craggy brows
A warmth begins, a reaching out
A willingness to care
A gathering in. To say to me in open tone
Welcome. Welcome, brother. Welcome, home.
Stay a while. Rest. You will find others here
Who share your hopes, your dreams
For it is a world of comfort
After all.
For Henry Lawson, Gerard M. Hopkins, Bill Butler Yeats and always Robert Frost.
I leave behind
Images of glass and steel
Megapixels
Clawing upwards in futility.
Now falling inwards
Invisible to the passing observers
Inviolate to the light.
Emerging at last on familiar shores
With a sense of strange but familiar
Patterns from who knows when.
Here the pace is country
Relaxed - our journey done
The road populated by low stone fences
Dandelions, clover, grass that
Gathers at the knee --
A cow musing contentedly.
This ramshackle run ends at the crossroads
Before us, almost in apology,
Proclaiming past glory.
The faded images of
The provedore
The meeting place
The general store
Drinks to quench our thirst
Material blankets, clothing worste
Flour, confectionary and with compassion
Powders for the pain -- the ache of vanity.
Coming to grips with this fragility --
Reminding us again
That in this, we too, are mortal.
The door swings open
Straining on the hinges
As out of the shadow he
Comes towards us
Trying to shield himself from
The assault of the evening sun.
He shows no obvious smile
But still somehow there is a glint
An expectation that
At any moment his face will break open
Like a ripe melon.
His boots are dusty, broken worn
Comfortable like the moleskin pants
In places patched and hitched -
The shirt a heavy calico
Once green now faded
Underarms painted with lines of sweat.
Leaning forward peering beneath craggy brows
A warmth begins, a reaching out
A willingness to care
A gathering in. To say to me in open tone
Stay a while. Rest. You will find others here
Who share your hopes, your dreams
For it is a world of comfort
After all.
For Henry Lawson, Gerard M. Hopkins, Bill Butler Yeats and always Robert Frost.
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