I Cannot Make Permanent Things
published The Write Launch Literary Magazine
​poetry

Torrents of seasons
deposited the dregs and dross
perishable remnants
impermanent sediment
on the dislodged boards
and shifting ramp of the
tree fort
where I stand under sheets of rain

I cannot utter immutable words

Ephemeral and fugitive to the constant
slippery with the unconcluded
echoes of our voices
holding court
banishing bad guys
saving all manner of oppressed folk
justice delivered via
rules of the kingdom chalked on the walls
where squirrels now nibble

I cannot compel irreversible change

Unabiding residuum of
sheathed swords
retired buckets
smelly fish nets
careening in a monsoon
of honorable intentions
to seal the tree fort
tomorrow
when grander ideas
hailed the days
and the weeks
then the months and the years

I cannot navigate a perpetual path

Enduring rain altered the course of the
water that rages
neath the fort
wringing me out
pelting the remains of
my dam
so the trickle has deluged
into a gushing certainty that

I cannot stop the drenching future

the rhythmic approaching of
the untried
the unfamiliar
unrelenting in its swirl about my ankles
eternal and undying
prevailing even without my readiness
to wash myself clean of
this March that rains down on me
while I fight to stay afloat
in the face of my recognition that

I cannot make permanent things.

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