catapult magazine

Wild, Free

by Joel Jacobson

What do I own? A dream
of open space,
a spacious place
with un-mowed fields swaying
like a soft swelling sea
at the foot of towering cliffs,
and a large creek
that threatens the children
with adventure and thrill.
This land is wild, the heart
is free — awake, I can roam like a boy
with my dog at my heel
and my lady tending the garden
listening to the whooping and hollering
and the impending trail of muddy prints
up the deck stairs and into the house.

There is no money or time or place for this land,
so I will chug down the sand from my hourglass,
borrow from my children and dump theirs
(where, indeed, the glass will be at least half empty).
The dog whines for an excursion, and I pay
my two mortgages and school loans,
and I sit in the couch, the television
quiet enough to not wake the kids
but alive enough to encourage me
to keep on sitting, listless, hoping
for that dream, that freedom, that eternity.