Poem for the Day (April 10)

Subject: RE: Poem for the Day (April 10)
From: GUEST,just for a moment
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 11:50 AM

Well, I'm afraid this may be horrible, and I'll sound foolish.
Beautiful Peter.

There is light in the wood, and life
No love or remembrance -
Those things are of the others, and pass.

Decay is life to that which dreams of tomorrow,
Death to that which dreams only of today

The tumbledown shack,
What was and could have been,
Melts into forest dreams of tomorrow.

Vines will silence banging doors;
Walls and roof will tumble,
And be replaced by living wood.
Moss will carpet all,
And this work of man will be reclaimed by forest dreams.

Subject: RE: Poem for the Day (April 10)
From: paddymac
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 09:57 AM

Thanks, Peter. A reasonably digestible contemplation.

Subject: Poem for the Day (April 10)
From: Peter T.
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 09:49 AM

Sorry, missed a linebreak.

SHACK

Well, that's over.
And I am once again where I was
But differently the same.
You cannot open too much, too often --
It is like a banging door in a high wind:
The hinges break off, and you are left,
hanging. As happened here.
The sun whitens the pictures
Left unprotected in the room where
Surely curtains once set off
Houseproud wallpaper.
Emptiness and its debris squat everywhere.
Broken glass underfoot, in the eyes, in the heart.

The seasons sag the shack in the woods.
Spring is worse than winter
for a shack in the woods.

It is hard to say, but
The flies and the spiders whisper the truth --
There is nothing that loves in the woods:

Only this banging door,
this high wind,
and the sun along the dying walls
Whitening memory.

Peter T. (c1990)