3527. TO ONLY OBLIGE

TO ONLY OBLIGE

I am once more crossing Muranto Bridge;

the awkward Silesian Fields beneath me

resemble something from a picture book of

my youth. 'Around the World in 1,000 Pictures'

was the title, so chosen - I'd now suppose -

because of the picture count and not much more.

That was so very long ago, and now I am a walking

veteran of all this life has brought. Not as much

the good and only what it ought, but, still, no mind.

-

Beneath me, I see yellow things  -  floating by, they

resemble what we'd call 'Ugli Fruit', which is a real thing.

Debris or excess, a farmer's field plight's letting loose.

They are not, for sure, cannon balls or grapefruits, nor

are they pumpkins or skulls. In a land like this,

I suppose, who would ever really know. Any

of these things in a moment could show.

-

A languorous cow here decorates the landscape  - 

to my right, a farmhouse sits low and white, on a

decorous landscape of green. A water pump, I see,

sticks out of the ground, red. Its vertical presence

a stigmata on the field, a distant dot of red, the

same color as blood on a savior's hand. The death

knell of a local bell resounds obliquely from the

church tower on the village square. I amble on,

only to think 'why am I here?'

-

A sainted character - not me - would walk these

grounds with a walking stick perhaps topped by a

cross - a top carved and colored with faith. By

contrast, I wear a sackcloth of modern day

envy and doubt, a philosophical hatred of sorts,

of all things that no longer make any

sense on this Earth at all.