The Sheepish Sadness Of Safety Poem by Denis Mair

It's good when questions crackle in the gut, then spark into snappy dialogue.

It's good when a rundown of centurial news is confided in hipster argot.

Thank heaven for receptivity to a hypothetical mycelium.

Thank heaven for an existential boil-down, still real but a little something extra.

Thanks for exemption from a meltdown... for dumb luck that leaves me space to breathe.

Thanks for distance from a smackdown... for the sheepish sadness of safety.

Thank heaven for a hair of difference.

Thanks for a chain of exemplars, my true ancestors:

Whatever marrow Thoreau was hunting... whatever he was trying to run to ground,

it wasn't some poor scared creature. He was attentive to wildflower species,

how they arrive in sequence, just when certain trees put out leaves.

He kept taking walks in cold weather, knowing his lungs were weak.

I too want to sense how things breathe together, so he's hero enough for me.