dissonance and the void

Dissonance and the void

A meditation on memory and reclamation

In the lost and found

Though sometimes the give and take

Leaned with a feigned nonchalance 

A picture frame chipped ragged

It hoped to grow promise in its resolve to hold

It had no traveler’s tale

Though travel shown

bones shrink in dry air

And skin sags over 

as if with the intent

to reveal craftsmanship

like the flutter of falling fireworks

Alone it was once but alone it was never meant

And alone it had come yet again to be

The storage room

a bin in practice

there a painting leaned on a once learned hand

were once it was a chosen find it was now forgotten

Slowly becoming stranger in its own land

It aged as things in plain view age

Becoming more than itself

By without 

It became

Not in appearance

But in being

through the shape of its survival

a roll of jute

twisted in graceful machine spun spin

on itself and back again

was looped upon a rack for hoods and hats

it had journeyed

from lands both warm and humid

as exotic in the minds of those imagining

as it was plain in the time of those who’d bound it

it had traveled too in time

far enough to see its kind replaced 

and remade in its own likeness

though it shared little of their character

it wondered in its resting

if it was a thing of eithers 

like forever and other

and given this it thought if it could dream 

it would be a good way to be

cans of paint strewn about the floor

in the silent blast of trial

being special they were here but

they were from everywhere 

and there going just the same

though uncertain in that

they were things between

not quite and fully so

such anxious things to be

like a hand reaching out

to guess the heat of a fire

being as they were none knew

the beginning or end of their domain

that was their lot and they imagined it so

save the longer they did 

the less it was 

such is the love of thought

to keep oneself in touch of everything 

like promises turning to prisons of stone

and last an eye 

cobbled from a thousand, thousand things

each itself a thousand, thousand more

did its part as it best could

reaching out to feel the edges of the void

it too wondered as it journeyed

what sort of thing it was

being two places at once 

both were it touched and were it was

reflections cycle

and recycle by their way

mark day and night 

to keep a path

though they change in every play

it did its part as best it could

only glimpsing where it’d go

only guessing at its worth

it paused to see

and starring in the mirrored pool

it touched the ancient stars beyond

slowly turning round the bottom of the earth