Sacred Contracts XXXIII: 'Dead Poet's Society'*

I                
                 
I’ve spent too much time                  
away from their Holy grounds;       
                 
their imagery and metaphors –                  
ones that molded my belief                  
through fine point verse                  
not needing to be understood                  
to be absolute truth.                  
                 
Sometimes it’s difficult to grant the dead          
an audience when the living demand                  
every moment you have to give;                  
                 
or, when sprinting toward home      
but never reaching its butterflied      
tactics of evasion with your dreams.                 
                 
They become unkempt memorials –               
years coating their cracked spines                  
with light inhaling the vibrancy                  
of their once richly dyed skin.                  
                 
II                  
                 
Tonight, I inadvertently bumped                  
against their epitaph while packing –                  
their shelved cemetery vibrating                 
under the category two imbalance.              
                 
Trapped in a web of melancholy                  
I wiped the dust, adhered as lichen-                  
munching to the embedded words                  
carved over their stone allegories,                  
                 
I thought about their sacrificial lives                  
their masticated ribs between                  
the yellowed teeth of glue                  
slowing pulling them apart;                  
the sternum of their bloom                  
casting downward when opened                  
seeds across a hardwood understory.            
                 
I thought about their hearts                  
vulnerable and exposed in death;                   
starving animals vying for remembrance                  
in a dying world too busy to notice                  
their once painful existence.                  
                 
I thought about my life too, and yours                  
among these dormant 'Winter Trees'                  
the perpetual cycle of this lifetime –                
as some 'Handyman'                
who could never get ahead                  
despite how hard he tried                  
                 
III                  
                 
My weekend bag is packed                  
waiting beside the door                  
as a faithful dog;                  
there is gas in my car –                  
and he patiently waits            
beside the hearth      
with a meal and warm fire.           
           
Yet, I sit unmoved on this floor                  
listening to the dead orate                  
in their forgotten tongue of words.               
                 
IV                  
                 
He'll understand –                  
It’s not like I haven’t told him                  
like everyone else                  
there would be times                  
I wouldn’t choose anything                  
over the books;                  
letters, emails, texts,                  
calls, or pouting silence;                    
                 
it’s not like I haven’t said                  
I wouldn’t be swayed                  
by bulging zippers                  
or swollen suitcases                  
by the door                  
yes; including my own;            
                 
it’s not like I haven’t said,                  
‘If you want to be first                  
in someone’s life                  
you must know                  
it can never be mine.’                  
         
V          
                 
“It was at that age that poetry                  
came in search of me."                  
saved me from the living                  
and fateful beginnings              
               
I am a soul inductee                  
into a 'Dead Poet’s Society'                  
Thus, I pay homage                  
to their skeletal memory                  
with the only thing left                  
in this world I fully possess:                  
                 
Myself                    
~