One morning
we will wake up
and forget to build
that wall we’ve been building,
the one between us
the one we’ve been building
for years, perhaps
out of some sense
of right and boundary,
perhaps out of habit.
One morning
we will wake up
and let our empty hands
hang empty at our sides.
Perhaps they will rise,
as empty things
sometimes do
when blown
by the wind.
Perhaps they simply
will not remember
how to grasp, how to rage.
One morning
we will wake up
and we will have
misplaced all our theories
about why and how
and who did what
to whom, we will have mislaid
all our timelines
of when and plans of what
and we will not scramble
to write the plans and theories anew.
On that morning,
not much else
will have changed.
Whatever is blooming
will still be in bloom.
Whatever is wilting
will wilt. There will be fields
to plow and trains
to load and children
to feed and work to do.
On that morning,
I hope I see you.
Perchance (paraphrasing Rumi), “This morning is such a morning”?
“On that morning/not much else/will have changed.”
Ah yes. That paradox yet still once more again: Nothing has changed; nothing will ever be the same.
You know, I like the trajectory of this one, and I grow fonder of it as it develops, but I’m not sure why that first wall building stanza strikes me as flat. Maybe the last line kinda depends on it, maybe, but… I think the wall just strikes me as too conventional an image, and the rest of the poem leaps so much more. Toys with new images, re-imagines.
I tried in my head starting with stanza two, because here’s where the poem literally lifts off the page, the strangeness ringing true. Again, I don’t know. It’s a nice poem, and that’s my only quibble:>)
As a committed wall builder, I find this rather autobiographical. Sharply in focus for me.