Lamar Howell's Weblog

I’ve never seen a morning glory, tame

inside a garden or a picket fence

They’re rather deck the hills and lace the lanes

like virgins teasing wanderlusting men

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John Keats, an English poet, who died at the age of 26, asked that his epithet read:

“This man’s name was writ in water.”

Is our freedom, too, writ in water?

What exactly is freedom?

Freedom to live where we want, buy what we want, go where we want? No.

Freedom is in the soul, in the conscience, on the tip of the tongue.

Freedom is invisible. That means we can’t see when we have it, or when it’s gone.

We can, though, see its opposite: censorship, shout downs, clampdowns on writing, ideas, beliefs.

Restriction is seen in the streets, in the media, in the church.

Freedom is lost in the soul and the mind before it is lost in the streets and the marketplace.

It is lost in the psyche before it is lost in the public square.

We can write freedom in water, but it disappears forever.

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I dreamed I lived on some pastoral farm

We had some animals and painted barns

A bubbling stream where I could wade and fish

A sky of stars to look up at and wish

I dreamed I’d stroll in peace o’er grassy hills

And laugh as grandkids ran the Elysium fields

And treasure holidays with our three boys

and relish freedom from the city’s noise

What I failed to see was that life’s dream

was altogether different than it seemed

My most amazing fantasy is true

I had the dream of dreams, and it was you!

I’d live in a choking, busy concrete town

I’d live on watery coffee, rice, and beans

I’d live and sleep on cold and barren ground

But I’d never live without my greatest dream

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I clean lint out of the dryer

it’s tiny pieces of my clothing after drying them

I clean the ring around the tub

it’s tiny pieces of me that I lose after a bath

I pull the calendar month off the wall after it’s over

It’s tiny pieces of mortality I lose after spending my time

Now I can read a newspaper through my thin towels

I can read my veins through my thin skin

I can read eternity through the thin calendar pages

It’s my disappearing act

So when my clothes, my body, and my life is gone

I’ll truly be

more than a peeling.

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