The Things of My Life

1.
Is everything I own
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
on my own searching
for what was just here.

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 like to imagine their
breathtaking adventures—
unburdened by reason
and responsibility. They
must giggle quietly at
our mutual escape from
necessary purposes.
Then, with no witnesses,
I’m sure they begin
dancing their secret
unclothed dances while
ominously intoning the
ancient incantations of freedom.

I’m happy for their
independent escapades
but sometimes I start
to worry and I wander
back to the point of
last contact. I look again
carefully and call out
softly. When they still
don’t come I have learned
to pause and breathe
so as not to raise my voice
in regret and frustration.
(That just encourages
their bad behavior.)

Eventually, most things
choose to return. I don’t
ask too many questions or
make a big fuss when
they sheepishly reappear.
I’m just happy to be
together again. Yet
the increasingly frequent excursions of the things
of my life remind me
of the days to come
when our mutual
wandering will certainly
increase toward full entropy.

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

*Revised and renamed from 7/17/20 ‘Universal Movement’