POEM: From a Portrait

From here, time and space are one thing.
In this room, the confinement of shape, confinement of geometry, are palpable. Through this plane movement is born.
Movement grows, crying and learning the day to day obstacles to growing.
Movement is everywhere and leaves markings in this room.
Movement is energy and energy is living so living is the universe sealed within these four walls and ceiling.

Lives tumble in and lives tumble out of view; from light into darkness and back into light again.

The walls are papered with Self Knowledge, some looking frumpy and worn out; seams have split apart by little probing hands

The Sunlight of One Million Futures glides without sound across braided rugs of Careful Teaching,
illuminating the Wallpaper of Knowledge,
turning the finger shadows of doubt into raw possibility.

Smudges of Laughter mark the bookshelves, fireplace mantle, light switches.
They are marks that cannot be removed
and this Sunlight of One Million Futures shines on these without mercy
like a spotlight.

Sometimes in the dark, the Grandfather Clock of Regret tick-tocks away;
measures what never should have been said,
never even been thought; measures what has been lost.
These are the measures,
the ticking and tocking,
that hold us indentured servants to the Past forever.

A house fly sings her dizzy song,
carries The Secrets of things to and from the room;
These Secrets that cling to her the way she clings to textured ceilings.

A spider’s steely silk web billows in the corner;
it holds Imagination like a sail.
Kissed by the gentle breeze of Youthful Discovery,
a Coriolis Effect of Childhood Dreams and Adult Hopes and Whims.

Love as a Dog lies mop-like with one-eye up;
the tail, the metronome of affection;
her fur in clumps on the floor,
on the chairs,
even floating in the air like the helium balloons at a birthday party.

It is a movement that turns what is inanimate into what is alive.

In time all remains within the confines of this room.
Everything else deserts you.
This room holds all the smallness that life is made of.

M C Biegner