“I think if I ever go looking for my hearts desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”  – Dorothy, from the movie Wizard of Oz

everything around us is all we’ll ever need

if what we ask for, and the angels please,

is where, and what we gently seed

we map a world away

draw far fetched places, smooth fractals,

inch imaginary centers of expectation

close together and, tether the wind.

we let the breeze caress escapades

that morph into escape, vacation in rest stops.

we are migrating monarchs winging our way

to havens that no longer exist

all as if life were not enough.

imitating the universe, we forever retreat

from the perfect place

where breath and brain birthed into light,

every vulnerable moment of our dying

wasted in clothing darkness

bending light

to showcase and shine on the possibility

of what we think we might be.

I was always looking elsewhere

for what I thought was missing in the now.

believing life,

starting as a source of light

dissipated in time, in the smog

and clutter of humanity

shining only in the mirror of others

your own back yard seemed never a place

to find the art of who you really were

to hear the soul song of your own music

shed the skin and rattle

of a lifetime in the desert.

so we are forever leaving

our molted shadows behind us

moving towards the light we cast

in our sunsets and sunrises lived

sauntering around in circles

for the very thing that resides

in our own backyard

I have cast for answers

on the very limits of a life lived

thought if I put it out there

the world would

request an audience,

proffer an invitation

to search the unknown

only to discover

what has always been

here, now

within the boundaries I set

from the beginning

fenceless, fearless

in my own backyard.