My Favorite Poems (Volume 6): The Double Life by Don Blanding

Day 148 (Written Tuesday May 8) ~ How very simple life would be If only there were two of me A Restless Me to drift and roam A Quiet Me to stay at home. A Searching One to find his fill Of varies skies and newfound thrill While sane and homely things are done By the domestic Other One. And that’s just where the trouble lies; There is a restless me that cries For chancy risks and changing scene, For artic blue and tropic green, For deserts with their mystic spell, For lusty fun and raising Hell But shackled to that Restless Me My Other Self rebelliously Resists the frantic urge to move. It seeks the old familiar groove That habits make. It finds content With hearth and home-dear imprisonment, With candlelight and well-loved books And treasured loot in dusty nooks, With puttering and garden things And dreaming while a cricket sings And all the while the Restless One Insists on more exciting fun, It wants to go with every tide, No matter where...just for the ride. Like yowling cats the two selves brawl Until I have no peace at all. One eye turns to the forward track, The other eye looks sadly back. I’m getting wall-eyed from the strain, (It’s tough to have an idle brain) But One says “Stay” and One says “Go” And One says “Yes,” and One says “no,” And One Self wants a home and a wife And One Self craves the drifter’s life. The Restless Fellow always wins I wish my folks had made me twins. When I read this poem I swear that the author was digging through my thoughts for inspiration. While most poems I simply love, this one I actually live. This line, “With hearth and home-dear imprisonment” is one of the most profound lines of poetry I have ever read. So simple, but so dynamically expressive. For years I didn’t “get” poetry, but once I did, I began to enjoy lines like this in much the same way I enjoy a really delicious, high quality meal. You look forward to it, you take time to slowly savor it, and then you bask in the afterglow when you are done. I only wish there were two of me so that I could have someone to discuss poetry with.