Tightrope Wonder, Discarding, After Backpacking

Tightrope Wonder

Precarious life,
To be present here
In this moment
Between birth and death;
Not unknown skyrocketing futures
Or dead-bogged pasts;
More difficult than the highest trapeze
Artist—our brief human
Awareness,
The poised tightrope balance
Of this present
Moment

--


Discarding

On the way to the town dump
Our junk in the back jostles in the turn.
Dark blue clouds curtain rain down.

I pull onto the miry dirt road
Past tall leaning one-story screens
Where many dark birds and wrens perch

But launch to flight as I pass and reverse.
Backing up my loaded van to trash heaps,
I get out and step through thick hogged mud,

Throw out our old broken stand and chairs,
A rusted bike, worn shirts and old ‘genes,’
Failed hopes and my grouchy frustration;

Yes, and my bulging head off-tilted
With church dogma, loads of heavy tenet,
And too many years of clouded regret.

Driving home—so empty and satisfied.

--


After backpacking

Yosemite
Half Dome
Granite monolith eoned in time
Glaciated but not destroyed
Majestic time lord
But unaware of anything--
Ever mattered

daniel
half done
fragile being decaded in years
ruined and soon inert
temporary time slave
but conscious of the Ultimate--
soon matterless

why?

--


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

1st published in Tipton Poetry Journal
and the poetry book, Dark Energy