Outside

Outside

I'm glad to hear children playing outside

Their laughter permeating all walls and barriers

Breaking through the barricades

Tearing down the bleak tirades

Of shortening days and greater distances

Greater distances that must be spanned

With great tenacity, greater veracity

All contained within the sounds of children laughing

I place my head on pillows soft

Gazing through windows, mineral-flaked, aloft

The power lines cutting through the gray skies

Golden, red, and fading-green leaves

Holding on for dear life

Even though death has clearly already come

But has it really?

Doesn’t the tree still stand?

Its roots gone deeply into the life-giving land

Though the visibilities show death even still

Death cannot overcome life’s greater love-will

All this I see outside the window sill

The window not covered with stained interventions

Just deposits from the lives spent and gone

I lie here in the comfort of this throne

To overcome and to span the greater distances.

K, Duane Carter 11/23/14