And All Around, the Withered
I total the numbers printed
on passing boxcars,
multiply by seven, then add two,
subtracting every third odd number,
only to find, in the end, myself
tethered to this empty platform,
spelling hapless with integers,
acknowledging Zahlen and
the infinite. Sometimes gravel, too,
calls to me and I observe space
in the path’s patterns, constellation
stacked upon constellation,
multi-dimensional galaxies
expanding in one swooping arc,
heroic eagles and exploding stars
complicit in their deeds and forever
locked in sequence, yet when I explain
my vision, the words emerge
as convex polyhedrons or inverted,
drooled gasps, and people turn aside.
That boy’s two bricks shy a full load, they
say. The lights are on but nobody’s home.
“And All Around, the Withered” was published in Steel Toe Review in January 2017.
O at the Edges 
That boy’s got capacity for ample curiosity and observations and connections – something those fully loaded with conventional norms have minimal capacity for – even if they wanted to take some on.
My mindful photography training expanded appreciation for patterns in all sorts of things – yes, in gravel! Light and shadow and texture and hue and …. oh yes, wonderful images!
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Oh, yes! We often don’t see what lies beneath the surface!
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The colloquialisms work well at the end, shifting perspective quickly.
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Thanks, Dave.
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Childlike wonder is always dismissed…until the wonderer is grown and writes such things as E = mc2, or “I am Brahma the straight line”…
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It’s too easily dismissed.
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Creative people have kept some of that child-like wonder, and they are lucky. But I think creative people suffer and worry more than those who are not-so-creative. I would choose to keep my child-like wonder, even if the cost is more suffering.
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That wonder is all around us. I can’t imagine not participating in it.
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People only pretend to think the boy is “two bricks shy of a full load”. The truth is, they all stop to find themselves at times pondering an ant or staring at a cloud.
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People often fail to recognize themselves in others.
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The world is definitely more complex than at first glance- I think that’s why children see so much magic in their surroundings. When I got older I had stuff to do so that was kind of lost. But it’s still there, I just need a little reminder every now and again haha. I liked it a lot man
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Yep, that magic is still there, all around us. Thank you.
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