GRANDFATHER CLOCK (Poem)

As I reach inward for the throttle of the poet

A boy of many ages

Stands at the foot of well-tred stairs to

An attic suite of rooms

Split into one 

On this side of the veil of imagination,

A bedroom his father

Shot up from curious 8-year-old

Into decades marked by

Their vast difference;

From Vietnam War era Atheist Airforceman

In all that Thailand could offer a young man,

Life raging through his veins

To the Baptist would-be minister

If not for the mark of one divorce.

Standing even taller at this golden staircase

Facing the son of complexity,

A grandfather clock

Whose pendulum found

The middle-path of no further movement

Right or Left

In a time remembered only by

Black and white photos

Barely sealed in a curious chest

In the other more magical of the attic rooms.

Always reaching for the attic

Mostly restless in the lower floors

Sensing there must be more secrets

Whose mystery could feed the longing,

The longing that sits in my gut ,

The knowing and

Conversational whispering among my viscera,

The yes, indeed,

There is something more…

At times helium for the balloons of my imagination

And around certain bends,

The rusting anchors, no longer moorings for

Anything but the reminder

Of all the oxidation of impermanence.

It’s time to rise,

The wind at my back,

Seed stirring in my loins, heating, readying.

Each time Spring invests her renewal

I must hone my senses to give these seeds of power,

These seeds of Grace some fertile fruitful pathways.

They do

Like me

Reach for attic rooms.

They do

Like me

Hope for some uncomplicated

Distractions in the lower rooms.

You see, I must realize at some

Point

That I have been walking

In circles

Around the same block for centuries

Looking for entertainment in

A house with no lights

Condemned to pass

Into dust.

I finally willingly concede

In this Spring cleaning,

Letting the final vestiges

Exit the final stages of

My digestion.

All Rights Reserved 2011 - Scott Patrick Schwenk 3/6/11