Rattle. Rattle. Bang Bang

It is all a little slapdash.
Rube Goldbergish.
This odd bit of timing connecting to that
snippet of chemistry, linked
to a bit of baggage and pain,
thoughts and emotions spinning,
balls dropping, something of a viral meme
except it flutters in your tummy
and pounds in your heart
and colors your sight,
And then, as if there was not enough confusion,
the ground shifts, everything is rattled
and you hang on for dear life,
waiting for the rattletrap thing to level out
and begin work again.

Don’t tell me
love is not magic.

About this poem.

About the craziness of how love happens.. About Rube Goldberg devices. About how life shifts but, if we are fortunate and hang on. love can survive.

The part of the poem I cut out. (I am always cutting out of my poems. I almost never add to them after the first draft.) had the machine flying apart and coming undone. I’ve lived the undoing and the hanging on till it came back to itself, and decided the poem needed a good outcome. I am a sucker for happy endings.

The picture was taken at the Hancock Shaker Villiage in Mass. This is the woodshop, which is driven by a water mill.

Tom