On the Alarming Shrinkage of Physical Matter

by

Gary Lehmann

Dear Diary,

I am writing to protest the alarming shrinkage of physical matter.
Just yesterday, I returned to the Maple Street apartment where I grew up.
You cannot imagine my surprise to find that one of my classmates is living there now,
but the familiar old rooms have shrunken in mysterious and unfamiliar ways.

When I was a child, the entire western prairie was enclosed within that room.
Thousands of Indians encamped there daily in teepees that speckled the horizon.
Whole buffalo herds roamed the carpeted grasslands.
I rode the piano bench over a lush, open rangeland which no words can describe.

Days on end, I worked my cattle herd up the Pecos River and off onto the open desert.
You would be surprised to hear of all the times I encountered rustlers
and had to fall in with Hopalong Cassidy to achieve universal justice in the west.
The sunsets on that high desert land were a sight for sore eyes.

Hardly a day goes by now, as I ride the federal circuit court bench,
that I don't think of the law of the west, and the place where
even the friend of a friend was a friend to the end, amigo.
Fine days, dear diary, but they've shrunk up now.

 

Gary Lehmann teaches writing and poetry at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His essays, poetry and short stories are widely published -- about 60 pieces a year. He is the director of the Athenaeum Poetry Group, which recently published its second chapbook, Poetic Visions. He is also author of a poetry book entitled Public Lives and Private Secrets [Foothills Press, 2005] and co-author and editor of a poetry book entitled The Span I Will Cross. His poem “Reporting from Fallujah” was nominated for the 2006 Pushcart Prize.  His short play “My Health Care Worker Stole My Jewelry” was selected for professional production in January 2006 at the Geva Theatre in Rochester, NY. Visit his website.

 

 

 

 

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