Metaphorically Housed: The Stories Of A Life As Told Poem by Dennis Ryan

Sunday morning, January 29,2023 at 7: 15 a.m.

'She ran calling, ‘Wildfire! '... '
— Michael Murphey, 'Wildfire', You Tube Music Video

Those faraway places where we once lived
and left a part of ourselves, as Kari reminded me
yesterday—yes, this explains, at least in part,
this restlessness, this wanderlust, where we now
live not always feeling like home no matter what,
no matter how long we have lived here, there,
elsewhere—the years go by, the people, places,
our life stories serving as houses of sorts, metaphors
in which we dwell for awhile, a sequence of residences
we haunt—yes, 'for awhile' again—before we disappear
with those people, places dear to memory, gone: Mike,
Gail, Brian, Prudy, Eric, Chris, Sally, Bill and Bill LaChance, Carla, John, Pete, Steve, Terry, Ross, Sherri, Sis, Maureen, Vicky, Maureen, Lou, Mel, Ben, John, Dianne, George, Liz,
Pat, Paul, Keith, Fred, Jim, Ann, Anne, Joe, Shirley, Margo, Patti, Esyln, Carolyn, Norma, Shirelle, Phil, Fergie, Scott,
Steve, Joanie, Stephanie, Bob, Nina, Koji, Shigeru, Isao, Tomoyo, Masaki, Kentaro, Gen, Tom, Alexander Anisimov,
Yae San, Ezoe and Munakata Sensei, Sumida and Kubota
and Tanahashi Sensei, Keiko, Mariko, Lasse, Eun Sook,
Young Oak, Brian, Dominic Juilliet, and, as Hemingway
wrote tellingly in Death In The Afternoon, all of you,
yes all of you 'left out' but no, none ever forgotten.