AndyPosner.org

America

Andy 1 min read
poetry
America
Image Credit: John M. Cropper: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnaesthetica/

My son and I spent weeks assembling
a Lego car, 3,000 bricks of hard plastic
intricately connected to form a whole.

It had a steering wheel, suspension,
moving pistons—a perfect model of a road-
worthy vehicle. We stood back to admire

what we had built, not from scratch, true,
but from hundreds of pages of instructions
we carefully followed, step by step.

And because it was designed to be used
and not merely admired, my son played
with it for days. But like anything man-made,

it was fragile: it came apart bit by bit
until, before we knew it, the chassis was
missing pieces, the steering no longer worked.

If you’ve ever built a replica, you know the
challenge of making it resemble the ideal that
inspired it. You know there comes a point

when the sum of broken parts is greater than
the whole, the best course is to start over, and
you curse yourself for having tossed the manual.

More poetry

All →
poetry

Diary

Ages ago I kept a diary in a hand legible to
none but me. I read it on my knees as just-fallen

rain clings to pinecones like wet feathers,
the evening slips into its velvet gown,

and starlight pitter-patters on my head
like drops of gallium. I am thankful

the day is dying, for I have forgotten how
to live. Who wrote those words belongs

to an empire that collapsed under its
own grandiose weight, its high priest

· 1 min read
poetry

Enlightenment

I was seventeen when I read Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen
a couple pages at a time, putting down the book to observe
sunset drape itself over my mind, falling asleep thinking
of not thinking, hearing a flock of birds and imagining myself
flapping against the sky and recalling that I am sky. Once,
the book well-thumbed and creased and read twice over,
I felt an ant crawl the length of my arm like a nagging
sense that

· 1 min read
poetry

Foul Weather Friend

I am a foul weather friend, dear poetry.
I have paid you no mind when spring rains
wash clean the marble statues of gods
and a cheery sun
reads aloud your sweet inscriptions,
nor when awed children skip through museums,
nor accordion-song fills the subway,
nor a stranger does another stranger
a kindness,
nor blueberries are so ripe they bleed sugar,
nor velvet chocolate cake knocks you dizzy with love,
nor, after making love, my wife’s perfume
clings

· 1 min read