Winter Garden on the Move

Here is a sun-filled window to grow green in,
enough blue in the distance, air fresh
as washed sheets, & acre after acre
of Spruce, of Firs…

No, that is imagined. Instead,
this drifter travels, bus-deposited, a wayward
seed in some pod shuttling back ‘n forth
like an empty soda can.
Motion promotes homesickness, the eye’s anxiety.

Outside reminders of survival abound:
houses strung scattered as laundry stiffened,
the thickened, primeval icicles pouring
from fissures &,
on the overhang,
signs for Fallen Rocks.

Along the highway, shoreline-dense,
all this congregates, a catalyst
once panic has fled. Then the
lost alley cat wanders, metropolis-docked,
to fall asleep, park bench curled & bundled
against cold to gently blossom
in the stillest light.

His defenses haven’t fallen though. No,
he keeps mirrored sun glasses on all the time.

***

Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer. Since the 1990s he’s been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online. He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance. Currently he is resident artist/curator for The Chroma Museum, artistic renderings of LGBTQI historical figures, organizations and allies predominantly before Stonewall.