The Library Of My Mind
There is no donation jar
at the door of my mind library
where file after file of my life is storied.
It is free to me and others can't walk
the halls of my private gallery
this is the stacks of my lived years .
Private viewings in quietude
set to the background
of a good jazz piano.
There in my leisure
I can view my young parents
gone so long ago.
I can walk along the stream
where I caught my first trout
and see the pilot’s helmet on my 12-year-old head.
The Spanish Peaks offer a color of white
so pure and clean
a perfect background for sunrise colors.
Fisher’s Peak changes clothes each day
as she easily declares her gender
in a most inviting manner.
The yellow roses in late May
so tough they grew when dug up and tossed
over the fence to get rid of the bees.
Those stairs up the hill to the high school
127 steps and five landings for those
who lived on the wrong side of the track.
Climbed them for four years
up to the middle class level too dumb
to see the ironic metaphor.
Principal Mertz in Saint Peter prissy garb
allowing entrance to his version of heaven
with a certificate from Rice Jr. High School
I control the access to this full stack
of memories with a mental index
and call up the memory for the day.
Dates, football games and tender moments,
pets and cars and reading in front of the old radio
all this and more from my mental library.
The file labeled DO NOT OPEN is where
I keep memories of failure, and embarrassment
and wrapped in warming wool chilled moments.
Never bored with this treasure pleasant library
to substitute for words escaping failing eyes
and inane TV programs.
If I but had a log and an audience sitting on that log
I would bring out the best of files
and enjoy together.
June 23, 2013