life

it's a white picket fence in the making,
a jail-cell for the taking,
it's surveliance and peeping 'Toms',
it's the fire that keeps me going,

it's Sunday nights when all is quiet,
sipping tea,
listening for the crackling fire,
and fire, it's the danse,
that trance,

little souls that bounce above the smoldering synthetics,
and inside that white door behind,
another world I can find,
where supper is cooking on the stove,
my beautiful other half,

my seven-month and three year old,

and about sixty-seven miles out east,
it's 12 years now that my heart started to beat,
it's his hairline that reminds me of dad,
it's his facial expressions,
embarrassing red,

it's my life,
and it was my pine,
i've cut both of them down,
but it's the first that gets me up,
each morning now,

it's my soul that my conscience must follow 'round.