Reimagined
by Will Jones III | dedicated to Friends In Deed
it’s like unzipping a familiar, yet broken zipper
then separating the strands
creating as much distance between them as possible
fighting against the magnetic compulsion to bring the familiar back together
and finding the strength to let one
fall to the ground
so what to do with the one still in your hand?
maybe you cobblestone it
filling the gaps with the chalk dust outline of hopscotch blocks
flooding empty space with the sounds of ice cream trucks, little girl giggles and the soles of tiny shoes touching pavement
maybe you reach back into yourself, on the infinitesimal scale
and grab the double-helix of resilience
perseverance, beauty, ingenuity
adaptation, creativity and raw strength that science calls
deoxyribonucleic acid
and unwinding it to take the broken zipper’s place
maybe its taking an oak tree
and stripping back the layers of bark
xylem and phloem
interwoven lattices of carbon and chlorophyll
until you get to the center ring
to the acorn at its core
plucking it out
and placing it in the richest, darkest, wormiest, old growth primordial soil you can find
whispering, while you nurture it,
“don’t be an oak tree
be food
be shelter and shade
be our lungs and filter
be cardstock
be two-by-fours, firewood, and sawdust
be tables, chairs, bed frames and baskets
be sap, be wind chimes, be life
be inspiration to future generations
be vast and innumerable in measure
be one
but do not be an oak tree”
whisper and wait, to see if it grows into an oak anyway
or becomes something altogether different
it’s building a sandcastle
flawed and cracked, but beautiful
with slightly crumbling battlements, ramparts, a seashell drawbridge
a kingdom created from fine grain and gravel
and watching a wave crash over it in graceful devastation
then staring, as the tide recedes
at the lumpy, wet mess sitting where structure once stood
and shaping what’s left into something else, something magnificent still
like a whale or a rocket ship or a tea kettle
because that’s what the new thing wants to be
it’s looking at the world for what it is
staring at it for so long, your vision blurs
turning to watercolors.
and then committing that watercolor to canvas
before handing your masterpiece over to a toddler
giving them crayons
and asking them to outline all the animals and numbers
shapes and objects
and all the things they see in your tableau.
and calling that what it is then
a world reimagined isn’t fantasy
it’s dreamweaving
zipping a piece of the ethereal, the mystic and mystery
the cosmic clouds you land on when shooting for the stars
to the world that’s still caught in our hands
it’s repurposing the oak table to become a wardrobe, a door into another world of lions and witches and turkish delight
it’s turning your hair the color of sapphires
it’s grabbing a handful of wet sand
and blowing it into glass.
a world reimagined is right here
waiting for us to discover it’s infinite potentials
the first step is simple
unzip
- Will Jones III, October 2020