We Remember in Sepia

A little mouse finds its way around cardboard boxes
Happening to find itself near the lunch room
Where there is a mouse's feast left out every night;
Just crumbs and fragments to us

And the picker in the next room had
Lived a country life as you can hear
Didn't do too much sittin’ around, waitin’,
Or watchin other folks walk on by

And the dumpster out back hosted
Many better conversations than were ever
Held inside, save for a few that are
Still around, for whatever that's worth

—Never became the liquor store's friend
On the route to what turned out to be
Nowhere sittin’, talkin’, watchin’, eatin’,
Driftin’ so quietly away

Learning to accommodate, and practicing
For now, the very thing I so happen to do,
Well it wasn't the same then,
It was more like how the cyclops

Imagines depth perception might be
Horses, gravel, LPs, and later a house of mourning,
Who happens to swing by just gets a dose
Of tears that tend to indicate nothing at all

Accelerating heart rate may indicate importance
That you happen to be in a place you
Might ever like to find yourself in
Finding what you're doing essential,

Just as it goes away the sadness can end
Just as simple as letting go
But that task may be found difficult for a certain kind of
Memory that feels like the first time you

Could walk after you had been
In the hospital for a while,
Or when you realized the stars happen to
Shine for everybody whether they know it or not

And when times is good remember to
Go fishin' if you get the chance
Like a walk down a snowy road or
A desire to stick around for another month

So you could watch the cherry blossoms grow
Spring in the desert's mountains a sight unseen
But to feel better about life to know there are
People out there living in magical places

And somehow sepia feels like home because we remember in
Sepia, not technicolor space dreams
But that grillin' seems so long ago
And that a few years can make

Quite a difference somehow
Ozone sunsets through familiar windshield framings
Ivy grew in the desert once
Or so I'm told

How far from sandy can you usually find clay!
Would the oak be as strong in other temperatures?
How do the rays in the clouds follow you around?
Shining like 25 December in good company

And the tree that was struck by lightning
Kept growing for another ten years
Eventually trees fall too
And become the accompaniment to good conversation
again in the fire, just as they were

Providing shade to listeners on sunny days
And chopping wood gives good exercise to the man
Who, as a boy got exercise by climbing
The tree, hanging by his knees—

Superstitions become complex structures
Growing with each year, becoming debunked
World affairs taking their place
Or legitimate fears that find no

Solution, giving that much more creedence
To certainty and not leaving anything up to
Chance, the downfall of all things blamed
on it being still able to be
Represented by a number with a decimal

__________
25 May 2017 11:45 PM, Fort Worth, TX