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Writer's pictureToby Gordon

I see wire where tree limbs tangle

When was my perception

confined in an obsession with

industrialization?


Gazing on a photograph,

on the beauty of stillwater pressed

to the underside of a lily,

on the dappled light picking its pockets

of damp and dry across the earth,

on the satisfactory composition of the

pine cones.


Gazing, my mind 

conjures an image.

Where clearly the shadows of tree limbs

weave themselves atop the dry hillside,

my jaded glance offers

the shadow of wire.


Barbed wire,

aggressive and still,

encasing a plot of wondrous beauty.


When was this shift?

Or was it even a shift?


Did the day I opened my unguarded eyes

mark the beginning of a lifelong perspective?


Gazing again, I seek the unknowable truth.

I find no appreciation for my mind's fixation on the man-made.

In my frustration, this perspective 

trembles at my acknowledgment of its being.



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Barry Daoust
Barry Daoust
Mar 26

I love this so much, so much power with every single word here

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