We are geologists, combing layers of life’s sediment,
scuffing our feet across forgotten expanses left behind
as sprites stir, sleeping off grudges just beneath the surface…
and they are not happy.
They like neither themselves nor what differs from self…
and they are not happy.
Life is too long and too brief to provide shelter and light
to zealous sprites who after long sleep exist in the world to
insure greatest maximum distress for earth’s other inhabitants,
because why should any existing thing find what sprites can’t have.
.
So we go in search of other worlds… pockets of benign welcome where
we finally drop the shoulders, unclench the jaw, and free our tongue
from the roof of our mouth.
We say the words that hold life and mean them… words that rescue the Happy…
and we are happy.
We find the ones who get us… and in knowing us, they heal us.
Valuable trust is carefully rationed until we find that not everyone we knew
has turned spritely…
and with all the world gone dusty and dry
a cooling rain shower to the heart regenerates what matters.
JSmith 11/11/2021
Playing for Time 
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