Universal Movement

1.
Is everything growing
legs or is it just me?
These days when
I set something
down like my pen
or my watch
or my keys, some
universal force
of dispersion or
attraction seems
to lure it somewhere
else and I’m left
searching for every
thing on my own.

2.
Like a game of
hide-and-seek
the things of my
life wander away.

I try not to take
it personally as
I’m sure they delight
in their liberation.
I imagine their
wonderful adventures
unburdened by reason
and responsibility. They
must behave without
regard to their
parochial purposes—
freely dancing their
secret unclothed dances
and ominously chanting
their wondrous
incantations with
no witnesses to
remind them of
propriety and necessary function.

I’m happy for their
independent escapades
but sometimes I worry
and wander to where
I saw them last.
I look carefully and call
out softly. When they still
don’t come sometimes I
have to take a deep breath
and pause so as not
to get upset. (That just
encourages their
bad behavior.)

Eventually, most things
come back. I don’t ask
too many questions or
make a big fuss when
they sheepishly reappear.
I’m happy to see them
and have them with me
again. Their increasingly
frequent excursions remind
me of the days to come
when our mutual
wandering will increase
toward full entropy.

I suppose in that
wondrous darkness we
will all dance endlessly
together without containment,
but for now I’m happy
with our limited partnership—
temporary though it may be.