Man on a Journey
(After Joel Sheesley’s painting of the same name.)
The man poses
in front of the monument,
freezes time,
preserves a memory
to linger over in his dotage.
But this isn’t the Great Pyramid
or the Lincoln Memorial
or some significant battlefield.
Dressed as if he stepped out of a
Masterpiece Theater whodunit murder mystery
into the wreckage of misplaced innocence,
to stop in the ruins of endured mistakes,
next to a ladder to nowhere.
His trench coat armor wards off
the unseen bogeymen
that haunt these neglected, unkempt grounds.
His journey has come to this
derelict, abandoned building,
made him a tourist of his own past,
aroused a desire to understand,
to be understood.
But the drab grey siding
reveals no secrets.
Busted out, boarded up windows
offer no view to the soul
of the matter.
Only the autumn colors
of the almost hidden sweater
dispute the peril
of revisiting past secrets,
leave hints of renewal,
possibilities of spring growth to come,
tint the edges of a muted existence.
©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
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