The Sunday Poem: Driveways
Everything dies. We all know it: whether it be the sickly sweet smell of something small somewhere under the bushes in the front yard, or the more leisurely and somehow more dramatic deaths of institutions, houses, entire countries. Baghdad has been where it is for a few thousand years and once was renowned for its greenery; no doubt it rests on the bones of itself, in ongoing self-renewal.
As you might guess, this here is a grim little poem. 🙂 The original draft dates back to 1990.
Driveways
Under blacktop dirt and dusty gravel
Struggle against grass breaking the surface.
Emtombed squirrel bones pushed by worms travel
Lengthy loam inches under silky turf.
This empty mansion, curtained by the falling leaves,
Filled huge with the decay of the Duesenberg
Dead in the garage, stands vacuous over the scene.
Every day the hinged gate screeches twelve unheard.
Until that sly squirrel ventures forth, the latest
In his line to dare the open road, creeping over
Encrypted paths of life beneath, inching towards fate —
Until he’s caught by the maw of earth, swallowed.
The dirt and dusty gravel greet the bushy-tail they got:
And then commence exploring his motives, soul, and rot.
4 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: Driveways”
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You’ve got a bad case of poetic license when you find the poetic justice in road kill. 🙂
I am always thinking like this when I drive by an old house, or even when we had our house built I thought about what was there before and before that and before that. I was reading a book on The History of England and it spoke of all the Kings and Queens. It made me think about all the other people who lived then. The people who were not royalty. Where are their stories? What has happened in the past that no one tells. What about all those forgotten people?
Adele, I do that too. Just about any spot, especially in woodland areas for me, I sometimes wonder over the history of man, what has happened here? Who has died and how? Who lived here? Who hunted here, and hunted what? I never get any answers though, for which I’m sort of glad.
Yeah it is sad the no answers, but probably a good thing too as then we would be so depressed an mopey:( Although those people would probably like to be remembered:(