Last One to the Bottom Buys the Lemonade

Sun-spoke swifting down 

Gull’s Hill, the late light 

of a meandering day --

last one to the bottom buys the lemonade.

How soon we forget 

ourselves, the treble tithe;

stitch of real things 

unraveling inch 

by inch, until what 

we remember is how much 

life extracts from the living. 

When I close my eyes 

memory silhouettes shimmer 

in approximation to what 

I now imagine was you

pedaling hell-mell toward 

the alternate destiny 

waiting our arrival 

at the bottom of the hill. 

I am taken back

through all the revisions 

I shaved myself into 

to fit the boxes 

of spaces I wanted to own --

through the stretch of seasons 

too impossible to grasp, 

to the lingering questions of how

much I squandered --

to the roots of the undeniable truth.

Life is what we construct 

from the marrow of morrows, 

stitches darned, damned and darned again.  

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[W. Barrett Munn]

With deference to other commenters on a different poem, this one is your finest, not so obtuse as to be indecipherable yet sophisticated enough and musical enough to be re-readable.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

I happen to agree. What has intrigued me about this one's reviews to date is how people read (or seem to read) the narrator. It is a self-monologue, and being addressed to myself. I only use the word you once, and it is placed and used in a particular way, or at least to my mind it was

[Chris Shaw]

The art to living is not squandering it. Sadly it’s not until you are older in years that you fully appreciate this. Time passes by so quickly. I need something stronger than lemonade these days. That helps to keep me in the now. Enjoyed this piece Ken. Have a good day.

Chris

[AYVID N]

Life is wonderful and it slips away before we can fully fathom it, grasp its realities and construct it effectively and fully. Your words have a surreal effect on me. That alternate destiny at the bottom of the hill waits all. The trick is to get in as much of life one can before we reach there.

[Scott Kris]

Indeed we created this reality. It’s ours. Own it. Keep it. Toss it out. Change it.
Dealers choice.
I’m buying bourbon. You can have their lemonade. Ha.

Loved the write.

Scott.