Out Like a Lamb

The Garbage Men

In front of my brick-sturdy house,
low down, a-ground, a short-tailed mouse
sniffs, then scratches sullied spots
along the edge of my wee lot

where garbage men (twelve minus ten)

place gripping, grimy, work-gloved hands
on my wide-yawning plastic cans
to tip them into hungry trucks

where here parade some marbled ducks

whose bills are shiny from a pond
where men from Europe, o'er, beyond,

approach to quench an aching need
to mine the land, fulfill a greed

A moccasined young Mohawk stops -

         *a dandelion puffs
         and
                   pops*

Depression-era women weep
where ancient wooly mammoths sleep.

Since time, we know, does not exist
then shouldn't every single where
be occupied at every turn
and atoms, by the zillions, yearn
to move about from place to place?

How, then, could a feather drop there?

How can, then, a rabbit hop there?

How, now, can my staring stop there?

Impossible in no more space;
without a clock, one cannot race.

A cross-eyed frown's upon my face!
(For Einstein, such was commonplace).



note ▼

April 6—Rabbit hole—start a poem on one topic, and let it lead you down a “rabbit hole” of discovery, burrowing into various topics, and maybe ending far, far away from where you started. (Let yourself do research on this one. Enjoy Google and Wikipedia!)