I’m in a room that’s just a few yards square,
and there are neither windows nor doors there;
but screens on every wall, and one workspace
right in the middle of the confined place.
And you were there—are there—but not with me,
in your own room, with your own walls to see;
and we both have our own desk, with its means,
to draft whate’er its occupier dreams.
We all are in our own rooms—that is here,
but there is no reason to fawn or fear—
we have always been here. And let me tell
how you have not recognized it as well.
I mentioned screens, yes? One on every wall?
I’ll tell you, now, what scenes upon them fall:
~
On one: the first one that you ever saw,
there is a video split into parts.
Your mother first appeared, that is the law,
at least, that is how every story starts.
Soon after, she was joined upon that wall
by others who you may yet call your own—
your father, or your siblings when still small,
when still their rooms were their very new home.
That wall—we’re still on one—split farther, then,
from family, to cousins, to the rest,
right down to enemy and also friend,
you may now have, the screen’s true purpose, guessed:
This screen shows us each other—living, live—
apart, we are still real when we arrive.
~
The ones I’ve mentioned are the ones who stay.
At least, they are the ones who stay the most.
Some leave, some will eject them, if they may,
after all, you are still your own Zoom host.
But still there is a part of this wall-screen
that you have very little power on.
It will be flitting guests from where you’ve been:
the people who have drawn where you have drawn.
That is one wall. The rest are simpler.
They do not change like that, nor do you hold
as much control over them as it were,
they are the much more self concerned, and bold.
I’ll tell you of them, but do not forget:
you do not have to leave this one as yet.
~
These screens are often dirty. Often crude.
Yet always so enticing are their shows!
You oft forget how cruel and how rudely
their slathering depictions, your mind, slows.
They have been called many things: evil, lust,
the sleaze of generations, greed, and want.
But they are information, not quite just;
but evil does not always look so gaunt.
The screens have tempted you and tempted me,
and tempted us to what? To watch, of course.
If we are watching them, we cannot see
the real road in this room. Trade course for coarse.
What road can there be taken in this room?
You’ll guess the desk behind us, I assume.
~
You’re quite correct. That is the road I mean,
though there’s another that some good men take.
You might just watch the first primeval screen—
watch friends and family, and your work forsake.
That is no evil way. But you will make
no new thing for the one who takes your place.
Yes—someone will, this room, after you, take.
You’ll leave him to himself: no harm, no grace.
That brings us to the desk. The workbench. Lade
with tools and more utensils than, alone,
your hands can use; but with them can be made
anything out of mind or out of stone.
You have some other tools to work with, too:
the four walls’ screens also educate you.
~
So I’m here now, and you’re here, over there.
You sit there at your desk, and I at mine.
And for awhile, we share the first wall’s wear—
we see each other, and our heads incline.
That, or you have inherited my room.
I write this at the desk with all my heart,
trusting that those who live here will exhume
the dead words that were my only true art.
I hope I’ve used the desk well—and the room.
I spent many years sitting with the walls,
If it must be my coffin and my tomb,
I’ll give you something before my frame falls,
and say what most walls never try to say—
that you should look only once, then away.
~
That is, of course, to look away and make.
Make something of your looking, write it down,
or craft some token that someone can take
to learn what sirens used to make you drown.
The first screen is far better than the rest.
You may well dwell on it for quite some time.
But even from that one your eyes must wrest
from time to time to craft your own design.
If you are more than I, you’ll not pretend
to know some secret that most others don’t.
It is that I have wasted on my end,
that I ‘tell’ wordily, for ‘living’ won’t.
But if it gets you to forsake the screen,
I’ll say that life has better with me been.
~
I’ll end it there, then. This room is now yours.
I hope you make the best of what it stores.
You’ll find the desk drawers full of fairy tales,
the ones I’ve tried to write when wisdom fails.
Or, if you’re watching from the other screen,
and I’m still writing, share where you have been!
Tell what you’ve done, and let me learn from you—
we are too silent, full of fear undue.
But do not dwell too long upon the walls.
You won’t like what their graduation stalls.
You’ll find, at last, a gutless scholarship,
and look back on a goose-chase of a trip.
The desk is where you live. So live there, friend,
and make for you, in living, a good end.