Goldilocksification
Sometimes I think:
I'm Goldilocks!
When I'm hungry I can eat
Just what's right for me.
And save the too-cold porridge for
Very hot days,
And save the too-hot porridge for
Very cold days,
And eat just what I want
Just right now.
If I want to sit down,
I can choose the big, soft, overstuffed armchair
With a cat on my lap,
Or sit in the straight-backed dining chair at the table
And do the puzzle in the paper,
Or perch on the kitchen stool and wait
For the gingerbread cookies to finish baking.
I can sit wherever I want,
Whenever I want,
Because I own all three chairs.
At bedtime I have a bed
That's just right for me.
Safe and snug with no bears
To barge in and disturb my sleep.
Because I have locks on the door.
Because this is my house now.
Because bears don't have a house.
They can go live in the woods, or in a cave,
Or wherever bears are supposed to live.
Because they're not Goldilockses.
I'm Goldilocks!
BLIND
The old blind dog picks his tortuous way across the empty lot,
Skirting the accumulated memories of objects he once bumped into.
Amusing sight, yet sad, but somehow also heroic.
I've seen him before—glimpsed him in you, sometimes in others.
I've seen him building his paths in children's tears and rage.
But look all I might, I can't see him in me;
He's blind, you see.
AMBER WAKENING
I open my eyes, all of them, and I see—yellow? A warm, golden, honey-amber—it's all about me. It's all I can see. I seem to be cradled or enfolded in a thick, viscous, sweetness that extends endlessly in every direction, or maybe halfway down a bottomless sea of amber-colored honey. But maybe it is not so sweet after all.
I am in a pose that feels familiar, accustomed, and yet uncomfortable and fixed, even as I also seem to be floating. It is so hard to move, but I feel cramped where I am.
Where am I? Maybe not cradled, but suspended, embedded, trapped. Then, maybe not in amber-colored honey either, but in honey-colored amber. How did I get here?
This is all I know, my World as I know it. It is my environment, my culture, my home.
If I am fixed in amber, then am I a bug frozen in a stone? Maybe not quite frozen; maybe not yet a stone either. Amber itself is a fossil—once oozing, sticky and malleable, becoming stone-like. A semi-precious stone, with me and my kind randomly stuck in it.
What's beyond my Amber-Culture-World? How would I know? Whole worlds such as mine could be hung on a lady's breast, focusing the eyes of admirers. Or lie buried in the earth, out of sight for all time. Or sitting in some collection of curios for curious eyes. Or on a conveyor belt trundling toward a crusher, seen as a resource to be extracted for varnish.