We carved into stone —
because the earth would not remember us.
We painted onto pressed fibers —
because the river would forget.
We struck the press — metal on metal —
because a voice, once spoken, dies.
We soldered light into wire —
because even paper withers.

Each time —
a tug —
a pull —
the hand of art against the grinding stone of the world.
A desire — the human one —
to be more than a sigh against the windowpane.

And now —
now there are hands that shape words without feeling —
voices without breath —
thoughts unbothered by thinking.
The mirror has learned how to draw faces.

But I wonder —

can you teach a child to wonder,
if the hands that raise them are mirrors?
can you teach a heart to speak,
if the only language it knows is arrangement?

Can a soul be de-encoded,
once it has been filed, copied,
losslessly compressed?

And when we speak of touching earth —
grasping the real, the aching dirt under the dream —
I wonder —
have we ever truly touched it at all?
Or were we always reaching through glass?

It is easier to drift.
It is easier to let the current carry us, eyes closed,
believing the drift is the dream.

It is harder to open the eyes —
and harder still to keep them open.
It has always been harder.

Somewhere,
someone
still tries.

I was strolling the sidewalks of my small
nearest to me town, a farm and vineyard
village, an unhurried and laid-back place
home to perhaps 15,000 souls. Tree lined
streets with singing birds aplenty, spring
sun shining, not a cloud in the azure sky,
another good day to be alive.

I was whistling some made up tune,
a thing I, almost never do, but feeling
so good just compelled me to expel.

My old legs signaled a needed rest stop
and an inviting bench lay dead ahead.
I took a seat and caught my breath.

Had not noticed the other old guy
sitting upon the end of the long bench.
I waived an index finger in passive greeting
which he acknowledged with a friendly
grin and slight nodding of his chin, a
weathered Fedora jauntily resting upon his
head. He wore old jeans with red suspenders,
green plaid shirt and well-worn work boots.
An old farmer come to town, not so different
than me.

We set in silence for a few minutes, just
relaxing and taking in the scene around us.
Caught up in that pleasant moment I began
to hum a 1960s or 70s tune, after a time my
bench mate began to hum the same tune,
in perfect unison and pitch, better than mine.
We turned to one another and both smiled.

We finished our shared melody and silence
returned, all but for the singing of birds in
the trees. I stood up from the bench and as
I passed the still seated friendly gent we
performed a convivial fist bump of shared
fellowship, and never a word was needed
or spoken between us.

Write what I know?  I am pocked with
chunks of broken moments.
Bits fall to the ground, trip me.
The terrain of my youth is a
moonscape.  I know what I know in
the craters of this place.

Born on the darkside and thirsty, I was
cold.  I found the sun later when I
was tumbled out the door of my
Mother’s leaking house.  Her screams
had become tentacles of maniacal
music.  Or do not call it music for
if you heard it you would not dance.

I am old now.  The view from my landing
is filled with sunlight and children,
“There are children in the leaves,
laughing excitedly”.   (Eliot)
I am paused in this imagination on
occasion.

When she is quiet,
I sweep her under the porch
where she lies drunk and unlaughing.
I do not let her out.  Yet she
steers me.  Her corpse loud
in her ***** nightdress.  

The terrain of my old age is pitted
with the debris of this haunting.  She
unsings me, makes me lie in
craters from which I climb up
daily only to tumble back down,
to have to begin again
from the bottom each new **** day.

But I sing as I crawl. And
she does not like the sound of that

Caroline Shank

We don't know each other,
We have not seen each other.
Yet, we are bound together
by an invisible thread of emotions
in this world of words .

Together we stand ,
   with each other ,
    for each other.