The Garbage Men

A journal entry stream-of-consciousness turned poem, a la Dr. Seuss.

Consider, if you will, a rhyme
where there exists no thing as time...

In front of my befuddled house,
low down, a-ground, a short-tailed mouse

did sniff and scratch a certain spot
upon the edge of our wee lot

where garbage men
(twelve minus ten)

placed gloved & grimy tired hands
on our wide-yawning plastic cans

to tip them into hungry trucks
where once paraded fourteen ducks

whose bills were shiny from a pond
where once the men from o'er, beyond,

approached to quench an aching need
to mine the land, fulfill the greed

where moccasined explorers stepped
where once a man named Jesus wept
where ancient wooly mammoth slept

         How, then, could a feather drop there?

                   How can, then, a rabbit hop there?

                             How can, now, my staring stop there?

If time does not exist
then shouldn't everywhere
be occupied at every turn
and atoms, by the trillions, yearn
to move about from place to place?

Impossible with no more space;
without the clock, one cannot race.

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