[The Harness] a travel poem

 

            So field the fields of dreams,

which may or may not be,

where home homes constant constants

constantly care-filled;

I care not those cares,

care less to carry

any other harness other than

the one on my back-

 

If I’ve carried it but a step,

a million more may follow

following the comings and goings

coming wonderfully bittersweet;

like the dust would rise above

the horizon it knows its sky nearly

almost every moment preceding

momentary rises-

not a step forward I fear

to break, not a step backwards

again will I take,

nor should more weight with

detoured tack,

to never again fall, with

this harness on my back

So do truly the miles I’ve walked

bare memories more plenty than

the living and breathing, too, truly,

I pulsate vibrant with aliveness away

than I’ve ever face to face

            Not even partially can apologies

renders obsolete what those who know

of me reckon, how never dull my eyes seem

dreary dreams every second content

If John Henry was born knowing he’ll die a

steel-driving man, with that,

this man, so appaulingly far from a child,

can admit he’ll die,

with harness on his back

There was childhood in Texas,

then there was childhood in Louisiana,

a bustling teen in Illinois,

so speak next of the lifting teen

back on the Texas plains

            Sabine Pass will whimper,

what Chicago winds temper,

how birth brings hostages into this

life with trauma,

to those condemned bridges

tattering this expansive psychodrama;

if I am to participate

I do so without slightest wait,

if I am to wake and remain awake,

sacrificing for the sake of

sacrificing will never be

necessary to take

            Pity me not,

mind not my callous feet that rot,

cry less regarding my being

ignore any beliefs of my fleeing

and if so happens,

I may never double back,

question not, whether I died

with harness on my back-