My Green Imagination – (Poem)

I am thus confined to the four walls
Of my self-made dungeon
I look outside my window; I see
Grass bending against the wind
Leaves waving in the Sunday breeze
Children playing soccer
And somewhere in a tree,
A bird celebrates the day in song.

Why am I not celebrating
This day in song?
Why do I not sit on the grass
And bend with the wind?
Why don’t I kick soccer
All the way across the pavement
Into oblivion? What have I done?

Out of my visions of
Sugar plum concoctions
And knights on white steeds
Come to save me,
I realize that no one can break
Down my barriers but me
Not even my fairy godmother
Or the prince bearing my glass slipper
Knocking at my door.

Has my punishment far exceeded
My crime? Must I pay the price
Of not rendering what is due?
I do not smoke but if I did
I would puff circled rings
About my dank dungeon and swirl
Thin wisps of my pollution
Into formulated thoughts
On paper. But words elude me.

The endless Artic sheet of ice
Lies before me blank,
As blank as my mind,
As intangible as my project
Soon due. I grasp wildly
For phrases, elusive words
Skid across the ice
Slipping into the distance.

I unsheathe my sword
Slashing frantically at the chains
Encircling the latch.
A link in the chain breaks;
The door springs open.
A flood of words pours in
And I realize that
They were there all the time
Just waiting to be captured
In the rhapsody of my essay.

My demons sneak away;
I return to the realm of the real.
Knights on white steeds move on
To save other damsels in distress
Though my prince
With the glass slipper
Yet awaits and
My fairy godmother
Hovers somewhere just beyond
My green imagination.