Pause For Poetry:
Michael Hawkes /28

A Change of Heart

A poem by Michael Hawkes

June 5, 2021

Gone is he of the wandering eye,
Whose heart expanded on stormy seas,
Whose mind took off to the open skies;
He who relished the empty plains,
Who thirsted for the mountain peaks,
Who having heard the wilds’ refrains
Has now adopted lullabies.

The grains of boards on the kitchen table
Are furrows receding to distant hills
Where a porcelain bowl and a bunch of bananas
Promise delights and sensory thrills;
Where a fly becomes an antelope, a bumble bee a bear,
Where a ‘micro’ more than a telescope
Shows clearly what is there.

Gone is the curious extrovert
Whose whole wide world was his to share,
Who needs so little from it now
There’s so little left to spare.
Gone is the wander-lusting squire,
Done kicking over leaves,
Gone the keen ache of desire
Beyond the present he perceives.

05/07/20 – Hawkes

Feature image: Pixabay

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