There was a Kemp went forth. (Whitman study/exercise... I had fun anyways)

There was a Kemp went forth every day,

And the first something he saw, he embodied, sometimes filled with awe,

And it would inspire or depress or confuse or remind him of some other thing,

Perhaps not yet thought about in that same way, or since,

And these instances of perceived wisdom or at least understanding sustained, sometimes for many a year.

Dandelions and caterpillars were a fuzzy fragility,

A conduit for change and the process of weeding out,

The screech of a mocking- or “kill-cat-” bird announces a forthcoming swoop, an intermittently successful defense against the preying upon of its young by his seriously deranged house-cat,

The same fierce feline who emerged victorious against snooping German shepherds and projectile-carrying small children alike,

The same beautifully terrible creature removed from his world out of the blue one day,

The sudden still air met with relief, and deep sadness.

The highway cutting through nearby, many times it he contemplated, it complicated, and for some devastated,

Eventually straightened out yet crooked still,

The memories it created did not die and the manicured grasses are still green from a fertile soil ripe with a forlorn sense of more preferable outcomes.

His own parents, he with wavering faith in a foundation of stone, she with the scars where the youngest was removed from her, also in wavering faith,

Together, they that worked hard to simply provide, enduring, giving and taking away,

She who left and he who stayed, the house not of his blood,

Where then it came crumbling down, the smoke of gasoline fire still nearby,

Off and away, the brother defends himself for country, service term obligations, college funds, and there the Kemp, onward in his own way.

There, along the way, were the lessons,

Of the snapping turtle, glistening near the gurgling stream, alluring yet fierce, hungry for fish and little boys’ fingers,

Of the field of the copper headed snake, only a baby, yet possessing a frightful allegiance to a genetic code, a cold-blooded manual detailing the ways of things,

The Kemp, unaware of such a silly thing, scooped Up and Away before an unpleasant day at the hospital,

Giggles and squeals, unaware of any little, or big thing at all.

Fireworks explode and the words of God expose and the Kemp lost in the woods, on the side of the road, in the classroom, on a bicycle, in a bedroom,

Belongings piled up in the back of his car, the kindness of beautiful, misshapen strangers and friends, More lessons, more reasons, more seasons,

He learns of these, and through broken strings and the mumbled written word, a brown bottle coinciding with the green leaves,

The yin and yang of an old-womanhood left behind at the crumbling foundation, voicing middle-road passions and regrets, and yet,

How it all came to be, the cracked pavement, the low-burning gas-log, an oxygen tube filled with smoke,

These things became part of the Kemp who went forth every day, and into every night, who even now still goes, and who will always go forth, unto the winds.