The Ostrich.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

the child in you
still stays within your guts

unspoiled you tell the spade
that it is precisely what it
is,

unsolicited. You look at the
leaking roof and tells everyone
at the party

about what it is really, as it
is, despite everything, how

the roof can sanction you to live
with all your storms
forever, outside the house, where

the yard keeps you in its corners
ostracized, as you begin another ostrich

life out there in the mountains
with your head up high chasing all

storms and leaving them all behind you
as you reach the placid lake, wishing for

some fish.