Beyond These Walls

Somewhere
beyond these walls
is life.

People dance,
mad with joy,
crazy with love,

unbound passion,
and faith,
even when the world

conspires to mock them,
they persist
in laughter;

they persist
in belief
of what they cannot see,

and in their belief,
Godlike,
they create the world

in their own image.

You can dance there too, but first,
you must breach the walls,
dark and historic

that you created.

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This poem was inspired by a creativity prompt in a book of prompts given to me by the woman I love. This particular prompt involved Wallace Stevens, one of my favorite poets, and a palm tree. Please, please don’t ask me how I got from there, to this poem. I have no idea!

The picture is actually not a wall. It is the bottom of an old manure spreader at a nearby Vermont farm. shot to look like a wall. In an odd way, what it actually is, works even better for the poem, than a standard issue wall.

But we won’t go there.

Tom