Elegy to Somewhere
by Randell Jones, Winston-Salem, NC

Somewhere rose before him for all the world to ponder,
Pile upon pile, the refuse of the day,
            the week, the month before,
            maybe longer. Who knows? 

Deeper down he digs somewhere, excavating for one thing,
That one, most important thing,
The dear, the sought, the precious,
The one thing he hoped to find.
The one he needed now. Urgently, as others waited
on the phone, at the door, glaring.
           Do you have that thing? 

O, give to the packrat, the hoarder, the erstwhile archivist,
            a filing system that works,
            that captures, that holds somewhere,
that coughs up on command. 

Yes, somewhere. Somewhere here. I know it.
Somewhere beneath this pile or that, it lies,
            the different ones so carefully arranged at first,
            by intention, by hope, by luck.
In time the somewheres merged into one another,
            chaos from order.
            Entropy run amuck. 

And now the truth be told, fear become fact,
the stark realization that threatens what he had hoped to do today:
He cannot find anything somewhere. 

But it’s all here. Somewhere.
For that he is truly grateful, Hallelujah,
if not entirely happy. •

Copyright Randell Jones