Just in Case

A window in the old mill.
You can see it as you walk past.
Dark inside. Not a window you can look in.

You have lived inside such windows.
For years in fact. In the darkness, looking out
at the light you found impossible to grasp.

But grasp it you did. Not inside the brick walls
but by leaving.
Walking out from the darkness

to the uncertain light. A light you could not trust.
A light you were sure would be taken from you.
It has happened before. It could happen again.

You stop and look at the window. It is dark
and you do not know if anyone peers out.
But, just in case, you beckon them out. Just in case.

About this poem.

Poetry is never about one thing and neither is this poem. A semi-autobiographical poem about my emergence from the darkest places. A poem about how sharing our journeys can help others. A poem about the old mill that used to be behind my apartment in Daleville, Va, many years ago. (Yes, that’s it in the picture). Someone lived there but in all the years of my walking past it, I never saw them.

Tom