A Hard Nut To Crack
In the end
I was a hard nut to crack.
The quiet force
of such uninspired history
piled dream debris
inexorably into the ripples
of my cautious wake.
In the beginning
I was soft and pliable clay
as you are now.
Had I known what would
harden and bake me and what
would ultimately break me,
I would have shouted out
an early warning to you.
Waiting for the dammed up
juices to flow,
decades blink.
In the middle
of the night I have wrestled
cryptic messages,
tried to right the riddles
in the morning
but instead kept up
this insane trading down,
swapping creativity for convenience.
I must have more time on my hands
in that other dimension
or all time
or none that can be measured
through a time-bound drip.
I used to think that in the end
God would greet me and say
I never expected you to figure it all out.
But all God said was
It didn’t have to be perfect.
And I cracked wide open.
Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and several anthologies published by Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something At The Center. Married and father of two grown sons, Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, San Antonio Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Night Train, Flying Island, Awaken Consciousness, Writers’ Bloc and Red-Headed Stepchild. He graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.
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