Working the Mill

The trouble is, you still remember.
The darkness. The fears, the swirl
of abandonment one slow silence at a time,

There is water in the gate, poised to release,
poised to run through sluices and gears, something
to break the whole mechanism loose,

to cease, at least for a time, to be a thing of the past
and become a creature of the moment,
groaning maybe, creaking, the old wooden bones

of your heart clunking and engaging and
starting to move again with the flow of new water.
Stiff and hard, everything moves

and suddenly what you are, all depends
on the grain you feed the millstones.

About this poem.

A poem about scars. Past hurts. The work that goes in growing past them. The role of God. The role we have in feeding our own souls and hearts. And about mills. Poetry is never about one thing.

The picture was taken at the Mill Museum in Weston, VT.

Tom