Occupied (they, theirs)

 

                                                                              -for Robin Magee...   

Capt. Barefoot shares

the old saw:

If a cluttered desk

is a sign of a cluttered mind

what's an empty desk?

Holed up in a new house

in their mid-70s

they get to clean out the old

Re-enchanting the temp shelves

with hardbacks, chapbooks, pictures

plaques, awards & freebox superfinds

the Captain's 

in heaven

They're not into the cyber-savvy

podcast-eared Ikea-primed

sparse architecture of the virtual

Instead, they're flying the wind-whipped

Ukrainian flag on their front porch

in spring's sympathetic magic of solidarity

A true believer in

the serendipity of accumulated

happenstance revealed

Says itki keeps the neurons firing

to hold memory's charge

Call me a hoarder

the Captain confesses

I call myself an archivist

Wandering the stacks

till the end. Until all matter

transubstantiates into

Jack Mueller's kaleidoscopically 

emerging form