Out There

Out there, flowers bloom.
You can see them through the window,
Bright colors and sunlight,
almost palpable, yet lacking

vibrance, lacking
the soft perfume of morning, lacking
the close velvet touch.

You built this wall,
stone by stone, with help
from others, who,
unaware of their power,

blindly broke your soul,
left you on the side of the road
drained and unseen,
another dry carcass.

But you refused
to die.

Stubborn and broken,
you lived out of habit,
and began to chip away at the stone
walls you built to protect yourself, chipped

away to your false strengths
to find the real ones,
the strength of flowers
that die, whither, then rise again

each spring, unkillable.
And so, day after day, the wall slowly falls,
until the moment
it becomes a doorway,

your escape
from here in the dark,
to
out there.

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The photograph was taken outside Philadelphia. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom