the way in can be the way out

personal to universal

the way in can be the way out,

as to write of the personal

can explode one out into the universal,

I write of the specifics of my muscles

remembering an arm break,

and the parallel specifics of remembering a death,

and somehow my poem finds its way to resonance with others,

we can barely be conscious of our own stories

as we live in first person 

and don’t slip into the third person of narrating our own life,

yet we each have a story

and nobody knows it 

unless a way can open

for another to know us well enough

to know our character within the plot we live,

all around us people live stories that deserve to be told,

the way into another’s world

can remind us that stories need to be shared.

by Henry H. Walker

July 5, ’14