Before generic

we toiled

with well made heavy tools

to survive

thinking less, I suspect

of the quality of that living

whether we were ‘happy’

nor having time for slight or scold

to injure us

sheer brevity of our toil

overwhelming higher thought

which at times I believe

may be as fitful and ill-fitting

as apple eaten from forbidden tree

it is that knowledge of ourselves

sends us into quiet turmoil

perpetuated by hours to muse

on the fix and drip of life

we taste despair in our abundant imaginings

for all we learn, we grow further

from that seat of quiet peace found

in hard labor and less thought

for every Sunday where I get to lie in

watching snow fall outside my safe insulated house

I wonder at the wisdom of this progress

whether

like the man I know who

lives in the woods

gathering water by stream

keeping warm at fireplace

his rough shod life is

that much gladder

than mine, able to turn

thoughts around in my head

like blue flies

urging to be loosed

19 Replies to “Urging to be loosed”

  1. Paradoxical critters that we are
    Given to plumbing our depths
    Ferreting out the dark and discomforting
    While craving comfort and leisure
    To contemplate a simpler life
    An uncomplicated self
    Not entrapped by the very means
    Of the comforts we enjoy
    And anxious of the ethics
    Of those means
    Easy to envy the freedom
    Of the wild things

  2. Oh! Thank you. I’m not sure where in the anthologies which ones might fit, and there is quite a lot of it now (140 of the Comment Poems alone), but I guess that’s what editors are for. I will check what’s coming up for submissions and consider what might fit.

  3. We may not do another anthology for a while after this one but keep that poem to one side, I am certain it would fit in quite a few – it’s far reaching (that’s a good thing).

  4. Well said and I can’t work out how you are on my friends list and have been for years but somehow it shows I don’t follow you but I read your blog all the time that’s weird. I will have to work that out – meanwhile I deeply appreciate you

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