04-19-2023, 03:39 AM
(Out The Car Window While Driving)
The road ahead was encased in a cocoon
of soft yellow light. It looked magical
like it should lead to a pot of gold,
or a quest, or a portal to another world.
It was the hero’s road at the story’s end,
or a lover’s lane at the end of the movie
(once they’ve worked out all their misunderstandings).
But all I could think about in that moment
was that the sunset was a metaphor.
Not any specific metaphor, just an empty metaphor
waiting to be applied in some other scenario.
I felt like I was caught inside this sunset-metaphor
by accident, or as a side character or onlooker.
It wasn’t my sunset.
Like being the guest at a wedding,
I can observe, but it isn’t mine.
I don’t know whose hero-road that was
or where that metaphor was headed.
It was a strange feeling
to appreciate the sunset in all its glory,
and then set it aside into a file
labeled ‘stock footage of a metaphor.’
The road ahead was encased in a cocoon
of soft yellow light. It looked magical
like it should lead to a pot of gold,
or a quest, or a portal to another world.
It was the hero’s road at the story’s end,
or a lover’s lane at the end of the movie
(once they’ve worked out all their misunderstandings).
But all I could think about in that moment
was that the sunset was a metaphor.
Not any specific metaphor, just an empty metaphor
waiting to be applied in some other scenario.
I felt like I was caught inside this sunset-metaphor
by accident, or as a side character or onlooker.
It wasn’t my sunset.
Like being the guest at a wedding,
I can observe, but it isn’t mine.
I don’t know whose hero-road that was
or where that metaphor was headed.
It was a strange feeling
to appreciate the sunset in all its glory,
and then set it aside into a file
labeled ‘stock footage of a metaphor.’
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara