MOVE ON
The day of moving approaches.
We’ve already started packing
and what doesn’t go into boxes
ends up in the head’s storage space –
the wallpaper, the radiators, the hardwood floors,
the backyard maple, the birds’ nests,
even the neighborhood itself.
Soon enough, everything
we see outside the window will be new.
Every block we walk
will be up to its treetops and chimney flues
in novelty.
We’ll struggle to hold onto
the ones we once knew
even as others
do their best
to shove them aside,
take their places.
Before true assimilation,
we’ll be some of what we were,
some of what we’re to become.
We’ve done this before.
We’ll do this again.
We’re transient by nature.
People and things,
places and scenery –
at any one time,
only so many truly fit.
But. at least, we have each other.
That is, until we don’t.
About the Author: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in
That, Muse, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming
in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes Review.
Image Credit: Arthur Rothstein “Unpacking new furniture at Fairfield Bench Farms, Montana” (1939) The Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 