Graduating Textures

You were a child once
playing with your hands
in the classroom,
tormenting teachers
who thought you should
be focused
on more serious subjects.

You were a teenager not long ago
seeking some wild place
and identity to call your own
while you bent words and rules
and turned your sail
toward bursting colors
of curious exploration.

Now a young man
with graduating textures,
you work your vision
of art and life
through the craft that calls
beyond this dazzling threshold
to the self you will become.

Something Old, Someone New

Despite the best in modern scientific resources, Humpty Dumpty has fallen and can't get up. His egg-shell exterior lays scattered in pieces across the post-familiar terrain. Once monitoring the world from a privileged position on the wall above, his fractured self is now openly subjected to the scrutiny of others below. Some of his supporters invest their considerable authority in futile efforts to put him back together again. Others cheer privately or publicly at his demise and fall.

Humpty can never be his old Self again -- despite the best of intentions.