.
“ Keeping
Balance “
I lift the lantern
of memory and peer within a place I expect to know.
It contains the places of my childhood, the chafe and residue of forgotten dreams,
My former assumptions, good intentions, and
once bright hopes in tow,
But as
I look I discover that unfortunately, Life is seldom what it seems.
and I loose my balance and stumble over a misconception I couldn’t quite eschew,
While smiling to hide my pain, I trip up on
white little lies I had to remember to retell,
While seeking my balance, I slip and slide on slickly avoided bits of logic in residue
Coming face to face with places my fingernails gripped in vain
hope before I fell.
Though I try not to see faces watching me in
dismay-why did I disappear so quick?
I
try not to see plans I championed, now withered, bound fast by my unrealistic goals
A dream with a hole in it, a smirk I only thought I’d forgot, expectations
with a nick
That I didn’t
take the time to any further than the tollgate watched by trolls.
I stumble over a picture of me in my youth, gap toothed and sweet. Is that me?
I wonder that I thought myself so wise at sixteen, so broken by
twenty-one sans ken.
I see haunted
faces grown pale with lack of sunlight that sigh aggrieved to see
The one they rejected, the one they felt sure would fail, and did either of us win?
I lift the lantern
and peer within a place which I expect to know but don’t recognize.
It
contains the broken toy chest I mourned, half-a-dozen cats and a broken marionette,
My
former assumptions, good intentions, and hopes in tow, now viewed in surprise
They
elude my chaste rewrite of history, as I use time I chase them, as with a net.
Fluttering
delicately they elude me, more familiar with these dark places than I,
Till
I chance upon a partially opened door and nudging it wide I see a light
And
I’m standing in the sprinklers on the lawn as 1950’s autos pass me by,
Mrs.
Kalesbeck is on the front porch, her crochet in her lap, smiling at us in delight,
And
my Dad is leaned against the corner of the house waiting for me to notice him!
A.R. Koheen
