My Empire of Everything - Poem on the Saturday Morn

    It was Saturdays like this, when I awoke or gravitated to the computer

    In Virginia, in Arizona, later in other places

    I did so in California, with no direct television to hamper

    The thoughts and verses, poetic but more prosaic

    

    Waxing on the Empires of my life and soul

    I lay and lie in my bunk, a poor man, yet rich many times over

    Surrounded by others and their wealths and growing empires

    I the eldest, I feel the most blessed

    

    Ranging in fields and cities, blocks and stores

    Of the state capital, my native home state

    Close but far from the cradle from which I hail

    Some say I am obsessed, possessed, overly emphatic of the things 

    Indiana - a part of my empire

    

    Now I have been paid to be here again

    Not to go to the land of hazard pay now, 11 years after,

    But to return to my family and the peaceful burbs of the 

    Greater Capital

    The world knows it after the nomenclature of our first great general

    towns an streets and a state named for him

    I have family and empire in the far state, too

    My boys will go there after the Uintahs of the Rockies,

    Where Teddy Roosevelt used to roam...

    I do not shoot, I do not game, I do not skin captured animals of prey.

    I capture and skin others things.

    I undress the mind, the thoughts, the memories of time and 

    All the empires.

    Michener shows me the Cape of Good Hope and its entrails

    Songs and artists and comedians, officers and teachers share with me

    Their pieces and portions of their kingdoms and realms

    

    All my empire, my world and worlds.

    Yes, on bright and sunny Saturday mornings such as this,

    I wax and wane on the state of the states, 

    I fail an Arabic test once again, in a different place

    Down the hall where hometown heroes and guardians of the state,

    My state, my initial empire

    Are posthumously revered in pictures and tributes

    Some non-combat deaths, most due to hostile acts of our enemies

    Of shares and overlapping empires.

    We share the beaches, the seas, the icebergs and their rivers of glacial ice and snow

    The whales and dolphins cavorting and traipsing,

    Like otters I have witnessed on the other side of the continent

    This my empire

    The Internet, my devices, on which I write, peruse, share

    Extend my knowledge and awareness of the empires galore

    The ever-reaching universe of ideas and powers.

    

    Annie Dilllard does this, did this.

    My daughter, now lettered, if you will, absorbs it too

    Thankfully, happily

    This all of our empire

    The outdoors and indoors

    The treed forests

    The creeks, the glades, the hills

    Talking to my sheriff deputy of Virginia just now,

    A man with whom I have shared some troop time

    Looking at the streets and boroughs, even, at least one

    Trailer park

    Keeping the peace

    These are my empires

    Hoosier

    California Gold

    Missouri ranges

    Virginia rivers

    Florida beaches, and why not South Carolina and Mexico?

    The Middle East, the centers of Asia,

    Moving down to Cape Horn

    An icy island in the North Atlantic

    All that and more,

    Even some Texas.

    Thank you Michener, thank you Dillard, 

    Thank you Lucas,

    For the Shadows and Valleys 

    of our incredible Empire

    Unending, everchanging

    And always the same.