There is a wall around a thing that does not know to love
that keeps it safe, in some sad way, and far from the great harm
experience brings with it when it visits and leaves broken pots and pans,
dead flowers for your freezer, dirty clothes and empty hands.
It can be climbed, for sure, if one is fit enough to try;
although its worn-smooth edges don’t leave much for finger grips,
and can, more times than not, result in sore and aching arms
that try to hold on tightly, but must let go before long.
“Keeps out the riff-raff,” some might say, and smile self-satisfied;
the kind of folks that think that love’s in limited supply.
If all the work we seem to do to keep a bad thing out
were spent in more productive ways, we might just learn to fly.
There is a wall around a thing that does not know to love;
a wailing wall, where suitors spent untold long afternoons,
their faces wet with salt and sweat, their eyes turned red and tired.
Then all too soon, their season’s done, and just the wall remains.
There is a wall around a thing that does not know to love
that like a rusting prison cell, keeps in as well as out;
a mausoleum for the soul that dies where it was born,
and leaves no friend to bid farewell, no single voice to mourn.
29 MAY 2009
