Whimsy

Only some can see the possibilities in the everyday
the animate and the inanimate
Wires and stones become swirls of iridescence
and the broken becomes whole, but different

Beach glass borne to the shore by shifting tides
perhaps from a shipwreck long ago
A piece of a fancy whisky bottle in the captain’s quarters
from which the sun-soaked sailors
could never have hoped to drink

Or refuse strewn overboard
when no one cared about “the environment”
buffed and polished by the sands of centuries
Waiting for a new life in the hands of the artiste

Faces in things, barns with expressions
sometimes with pointy German army helmets
others with the sadness of decay and uselessness
But almost always with two eyes
that watch over the encroached-upon countryside

Only some can see the elegance
of a deflated balloon in the grass
Spent. Discarded. Irrelevant.
A remnant of a small-town high school graduation
or once tied to a sign with directions to a birthday party
“Nifty nifty look who’s 50”