The death of a moon cowboy

I am a somewhat-youth with ideas and thoughts and too many dreams that sometimes overflow as these little dribblings from my fingertips. I guess you can try to collect and capture them.


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Retirement

Still half asleep, opened eyes barely;
woke at two, three, four and so on.
Packed snowdrifts stream by in subfreezing weather.
Fogged eyes and rear windows.
The motor hums and warms and
spit little bolts of fire inside like
fresh sunburts propelling a new day,
a new tired string of hours,
some chorus of immaterial voices fixed
like ornaments in a Christmas tree--
seasonal and fleeting we hope.
So static and typical--these displaced
priceless things that glitter and gleam
where we've set them, waiting to
be appraised by a future which may never arrive.
We wait for a decisive indicator
that our choices have been good and correct,
that we're working and will work
hard like those tireless spark plugs
until the day our job is done, engine retired
or dead
or maybe a moment sooner.

--- ---

A random poem I wrote in January regarding work and working, routine and monotony. The way things like this in life ebb and flow.

5 comments:

Amy Beatty said...

You are AMAZING!! So good honey. And you just put ten hours in today. You are making it all happen honey. This is the dream and it keeps on getting better. xoxo

moonshinejunkyard said...

sort of like a punch to the gut. i like how the mechanical or man-made collide again with the natural or shall we say god-given (dreams, hopes, time passing) in life. that last little twist is heart wrenching though. and by the way, despite your good work ethic, i know your engine will be retired LONG AFTER the job is done, if you get my drift. in other words, you aint no tireless spark plug. you are the damn car itself, or the sky, the road, and the rain on the windshield.

Mikie Beatty said...

But when the cold disappears and your work finished.. maybe there's no happiness in finishing anything. Maybe knowing we still have work to do is the only way we can appreciate our surroundings and the things we have. I wonder if I'll ever get to relax and be happy at the same time. It's always one or the other.

Nice work. Like the sparkplug imagery.

Reluctant Conquistador said...

"...or maybe sooner." Great ending.

mattbeatty said...

Thanks for the all good comment words everyone. And I think I know what you mean about one or the other, Mikie.