Poetry / Tom Barlow

‘Folk Wisdom'

FOLK WISDOM
 
Folk wisdom says when the forsythia blooms
it's time to plant peas and when apple blossoms
 
drop, plant corn. Put out your snapdragons
when the chokeberry trees leaf and when your
 
shoes outnumber your friends, it's time to go
barefoot for a while. When days pass like the
 
strobe of a lightning bug, it's time to gild
every moment, and when your nightmares
 
don't scare you as much as the world you wake to,
the old folks will warn you your bed is a trap
 
that can swallow you whole. When you don't
remember how you ended up in a stranger's bed,
 
it's time to search for the mirror that spat at
you and punch it square in the mouth, and when
 
your diary won't stop bleeding, they'd tell you to
tape it to a brick and throw it in the goddamn river.
 
Folk wisdom will tell you that everybody reaches
a point when the world has put on too much weight
 
for their weary arms, and it's OK to set it down
and walk away.
 
Another greenhorn will pick it up soon enough.
 
 






Tom Barlow is a Columbus, Ohio, USA writer of poetry, short stories and novels. His most recent poems have appeared in Voicemail Poetry,  PlainSongs, The New York Quarterly, Proem, Your Daily Poem, The Aurora Review, and other anthologies and periodicals.  See more at tombarlowauthor.com.