This poem will be my daily (or whenever I can get around to it) rant. If you liked today's poem, no need to worry come tomorrow... there is an archive file. Granted you may have to look for it, but aren't my poems worth it?
Traversing the cracked asphalt path, splongiferous fleejorb running around my mind. I come upon a tree, with white blossoms in full orchestration. Stopping briefly , though I have little time, I pick one. It is light in color and weight. Ma' Nature's Meringue. A short moment passes with a Beat. Following this, the petals disjoin ("Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold") and flitter to the ground by my feet. Nothing but a stem and a stamen remain in my hand. I place these in my pocket, full of Tom Sawyerish items. I continue on, after all, I've got a class to make. Asleep in class, I dream. An old man Jim, passes by the tree again, to stare up at its beauty as he did umpteen years ago. Approaching the tree, he finds it bare- with peeling bark, and severed boughs. Dry branches are scattered around its circumference, and cover a long disused footpath that circles the tree. He closes his eyes and hears running and laughing ("A little lovers' race") and then envisions dancing ("A lover's waltz around your base") Falling to his knees he weeps and wails and tears his shirt apart at the buttons. Glancing down at his old man's chest he stares at the kenji symbols (love and eternity) on his breast. And then at the top of his vision he sees dried, yellowed petals. Reaching deep into his pockets he pulls out an old, cracked Tic-Tac container. Inside are a stem and stamen from long in his past. Summoning his strength to get to his feet, a branch nearly jabs his eye. He bends it, it springs back. He scrapes bark from it with his thumbnail; the flesh is green! The branch that fed the picked flower still lived! All of the blossoms had drained the tree of its life. The old me begins laughing hysterically. Laughing he sits down, against the tree's trunk, and takes in life's last few breaths. Beth . The bustle of leaving students wakes me. I get up to leave and walk past the tree again. This time I stop not. After all, I've got a job to do.
Jim Cortina 4-25-2001