Poetry: Progress

Progress

A few days ago this room
looked complete,
filled with furniture, light, carpet...
pictures on the wall from your travels.

There were bookshelves filled
with a lifetime of reading,
and tiny reminders of your life,
knick knacks, completed the picture.

It was a place where you dined,
where you read late into the night,
where friends gathered for conversation
by candlelight.

But the pictures and furniture hid the flaws,
the cracks in the plaster, the holes in the walls,
the paint, faded and dull with age,
and so, you decided it was time,

worth the work to repaint, to fill the cracks,
repair the walls, hang new lights, restored
from your journey into shops over decades
of wandering,

and began, just as you began to repair
your heart and soul a few years earlier,
to reclaim the foundation and dreams
lost with time and age.

Slowly you move each vestage of your life,
tear it down, pile it up,
until the room is near empty, a shell,
raw, each flaw vibrant,

reminding you that too often,
progress is far messier, far harsher
right at the point
of redemption.

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Who knew painting a couple of rooms could be such creative fodder? You can click on the picture for a larger version.

Tom