And now one week
After the shelling stopped
Seven days post Armageddon
Things are coming back
Nature has a way
Of reclaiming what most
Of humanity allegedly conquered
Pounding and pounding and
Pounding its angry fists
But in the silence
In the deep sigh
Life slowly creeps delicately
Cautiously creeps back home
Much like love will
Once they are gone
I live in
A land of
Sex and desire
It’s lonely here
Here there everywhere
Cardboard and concrete
Coldness loneliness despair
Lots of rain
And snow too
Here they call
Sex and desire
Fun and play
But no bells
Ring heralding recess
Just the stomp
Stomp stomp of
Going from one
To the next
Always looking looking
And never finding
What are the firsts
Of things called of
Things that before had
Been routine can the
Firsts of things previously
Known be anything other
Than normal what about
The firsts of things
Heretofore already experienced yet
Now proven different and
Curious what makes something
Old new again desire
Serendipity or maybe longing
For what had been
I have always said
That the bottom is
The best place to
Start because everything else
Looks up from there
When down chin up
For when your chin
Is up so is
Your head and everything
Is shiny and new
Having spent two years
Submerged with the outcasts
Amongst the otherwise forgotten
Those others know about
But dare not be
Those that make up
The stairs upon which
Most other people climb
I learned that life
Doesn’t end in accumulation
For all those whom
Have not have more
Much more in fact
For those with nothing
Have nothing to lose
And that is blessed
And is actually freedom
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 