There in the park where I played as a kid
I saw them painting the brown grass green.
Just us early risers and the unfolding of the nascent day—
the clustered clarity of it all impinging trenchantly
on my slowly developing take of things
so early in the morning—
Entering into commerce I saw those who were unable
doing the best they could—
compromised by issues which they’ll never overcome
but loved nonetheless by someone somewhere—
and there was a twang in the rusty heartstrings.
Later in the darkness I saw something altogether
different—it looked like a searing flame but it was just
the flickering glow of a huge TV—the actualities
dawning, yawning; colored as they were with their
unsettling palette of tempered uncertainty.
Recollecting the future while anticipating the past
I set out to reconcile the paradoxes
only to arrive somewhere else entirely
and undergo the heavyweight realization that the
paradoxes have long since—maybe even always—
been wholly reconciled.
by Mark Terrill
from Empty Mirror
