Content in Your Blues

It is early in the morning and there is a blue light in the air.
Down below the ridge, the river slides silently,

There is a small factory there. A survivor
of decades of industry fleeing this part of the country,

still working. Steam rising in the cold air.
People working, even at this hour, unseen.

You breathe in the air. Cold. A smell of smoke.
Somewhere someone is burning wood, a lot of it.

It is an odd place you live in. At times a postcard from the past,
at times ragged with the truth of the times,

a thousand ways to hurt. A world of wounds
surrounded by 1955, To peaceful for words.

You sigh. Alone. No one to hear you. No one to hear
the depth of it. A little ragged. A little blue.

The light will be slow in changing. You feel it in the air.
Rain and clouds and a perfect mist.

You should go in. Stay dry. But some beauty is worth the pain,
and so you say. Content in your blues,

About this poem.

The key here, a thing I learned late, is that “some beauty is worth the pain.” Also a poem about changing times, even in rural places. A poem about love, sometimes achingly beautiful. Poetry is never about one thing.

The photograph was taken near Greenwich, NY.

Tom