Some Stay on the Same Square

Some Stay on the Same Square

(“Abraham was waiting for the city that has real foundations—the city planned and built by God.” Hebrews 11:10)

Some stay on the same square, never moving high or low,
never exploring diagonals that crossed their fence lines like
afternoon sunlight. They find silence one way to cope.
They think they are home. There is dirt between their toes,
but their souls are mere mirrors of every marionette face
that has nodded in approval.

I’m not sure where I fit. Some days the only speech I hear
is the buzzing of wings filling the air. Others the moments are
silent as snow.

Some wander like dandelion fluff, alighting on fence posts,
on the ears of lazy dogs in the sun, on the forehead of an old man
wishing he was young. Some never settle but are carried beyond
the sun. Behind the star where no one can prove they exist at all.

I have not wandered that far. But my feet are worn from red
Oklahoma clay, from black adolescent asphalt, from North Country
needles of ice, from imitating the fancy dancers on the summer plains.

The summer before high school, late for an evening walk,
two girls walked toward me who I had not met. They were eating
grapes
in the waning summer warmth. The told me their names, threw
the grapes on the street and told me they were making wine.
And one, I am happy to say, is still a friend of mine.

Some clamp down and never let go. Some hide inside the
doctrines that lied to them about the length and love and
shape and movement of things. Though they would thrive with
a single moment of brave contemplation, their diet is complete.
The healer they long for will never appear until their
lego towers crumble, random and underfoot.

I have built monoliths; I have worshiped granite. I have
longed for magical upheaval; I have written stone monuments
upon my walls.

My bones have become rigid while my heart melts beneath
the warmth that makes every turn of the earth my home.