Arbitrary

Arbitrary

There's celebration and remembrance

As this year comes to a close

It was my birthday this month

All measured in years

One revolution around the sun

Really a corkscrew as we go around

The Milky Way galaxy traveling 

Through space

How far away was I when born

Billions of miles

A year ends every day

How far do I travel in a second

I am lost now

A foundling unfound

As a child I could go

To the end of the road

And back

I couldn't climb to the rock

Mother I'm on this rock

Spinning out of control

Stop pulling me back

Let me swim in this emptiness

On my own

Ah

Another tumble into sometime

Such strange feelings

The great clothes dryer of space

Barry G. Wick

For the Living

For the Living

How is a person to live

When there is injustice

When it seems the guilty

Slip by the best of law

When people are attacked

What is to be done

To defend those who

Suffer a fist or evil words

There is only one way

as roads are blocked to freedom

Be sudden cymbals crashed

As others sing quiet hymns

Barry G. Wick

 

Mid-December

Mid-December

It comes every year

On an an age-old system 

The months are a part

Of time measurement

The strange clock ticks

Weather changes as earth

Rotates and revolves

It's not yet heavy winter

This year of rain and sun

Just one small snow didn't last

This home has traveled

On two feet and dreaming

Since it gained life and vision

There may be no tomorrow

That thought grows into next

Or almost a list of possibilities

Barry G. Wick

Doorway

Doorway

A cold and windy day

Outside and inside my life

Despite my gratitude

For all that life brings to me

Over the roof next door

Branches move in a tree

This rolling breeze strips

The remainder leaves to ground

Much like those tossed

Below the porch I stare

Across to the sea of grass

Of this tiny lawn between

What ate the walnuts

Thrown to my porch

Raccoons or possums

They'll have more tonight

Then I can't let more go

Their Christmas gift seen

From a poor man edged

In his walker at the doorway

Barry G. Wick

Survivor

Survivor

The silence of my younger years

has become the silence

of my older times

The world around me growing up

hated me

The religious claimed they were

salt of the earth

Any farmer knows

if they spread salt on the earth

nothing grows

They spread salt on my life

Yet through that poison

I still grew

Then HIV then COVID

Still with all around me

I've shut down

What is missing

Is love

Life to me now

Is like picking 

Tiny black lint

Out of a new white towel

Sisyphus weeps

If being homosexual is life

For you

Or transgendered

Anything different

South Dakota

Is a damn horrible place

Or anyplace where people

Believe in hate

Teach hate

Speak hate

See the world through 

Their hate eyes

And if a part of the indigenous

Where your ancestors lived

Is where you are hated

Not all no but enough

Enough

Barry G. Wick

Purpose

Purpose

You say you're getting older

And your life is slipping by,

Remember what your parents saw

With each well seasoned eye.

Even when the eyes don't work

And blindness ends all color,

Bright sounds make this life worthwhile

To some will seem so dull.

You are here to share the earth

It's sounds it's sights it's feel.

To share the earth with parents past

For them we make it real.

Barry G. Wick