The Scrivener

image borrowed from bing

The Scrivener

“There is not a particle of life that

does not bear poetry within it.”

--Gustave Flaubert.

Wandering the width & breadth of landscapes

shared by the busy and the blind, I tend to

record tiny moments & events with my digital

lens & my poet’s quill; captured as my personal

tableaus of truth.

On some ancient barns and buildings,

where all trace of stairs & porches have crumbled

to dust, I am fascinated by those naked doors

to nowhere, extant but providing no access.

Wildflowers sometimes sprout out of bare brick,

clinging to life high above the street, creating

nourishment out of thin air and mist. 

On a tombstone I read that this man died

the year I was born, so we must have passed

each other in the dimensional ether, soon

forgetting the encounter. 

Rimless, but still geared, the rusted clutch

pressure plate seemed paralyzed at parade rest;

restrained by thistles it could only shift

the inert cogs of nothingness. 

Most clouds caught & mirrored in fresh puddles

love to dance a wicked shimmy. 

Piles of discarded signs in deep grass on empty lots

are where many politicians end up after the hurrahs. 

A toddler’s red tennis shoe atop a bright blue refuse

container makes me wonder why it was never retrieved. 

A twisted log, once a wave rider, now lies near the high tide

mark, unable to crawl any further, content to allow the sand

to weave it a warm blanket. 

Dead flowers left on the graves of dead loved ones,

still sustain a proud beauty when compared to

the dusty plastic ones alongside them.

When a wide city culvert becomes choked

with thriving weeds, it remains a reluctant

garden as growth trumps flow. 

I see far too many homeless picket fences,

no longer white, no longer functional, just

so many broken yellowed teeth in a sad wooden smile. 

Fire’s passionate embrace on flesh or other combustibles

invariably leaves deep dark scars forever, permanent

badges of courage or chance encounter. 

In Autumn I love to seek out the pumpkin dwarves

that cower in the cold shadows of their giant siblings.

Why is it that new windows recently installed in

empty houses do not spark inquiry?

Totem thunderbirds, eagles, & gulls possess

great spiritual power, but they reject all bread crumbs. 

Behind glass, the hot house ladies always dress up

in their most colorful attire for their club meetings. 

So many moments & significant things frozen

for future review and contemplation; they are

part of the cornucopia of discarded and hidden

treasures that are never-ending, and I will not

presume to effect change on them--for I am

but a humble scribe, and it is enough to notice

and acknowledge them. 

Glenn Buttkus

May 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

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