SLAM!

A Trace of Joy

Once, I frolicked as an eight year-old clown
scooping up games of one-upsmanship
unafraid to tell tall tales and say,
"it wasn't me," then flop under a table facedown
to write poems or listen to gossip
and hear how and where I went astray.

My rickety family, its pecking order renown,
a child's fears and tears not a bargaining chip,
the cord stretched and thinned; then, on an autumn day,
everything collapsed when I skipped town
wounded, though I still wore a clown's nose with a red tip,
but like a re-potted plant conquering decay,
roots gripped the soil and sent the wind a grin.

Later on, when I donned my cap and gown
for a scavenger hunt in a lifelong trip
to whip up a whirl, or to play
peekaboo with fate, I still knocked, dodging many a frown,
on poetry's door as if in a comic strip
and the clock ticked forward without delay.

Today, drenched with age in a southern town,
I search the mind's jungle through memory's grip
before the ghosts of blossoms fade away.
Without grieving now, those distant howls I drown,
since I can still doodle with an awe-filled zip
and send a childlike shrug to a world in fray,
for my life I have lived in my own skin.

"A Trace of Joy"