I’ve taken apart my paddle
There is no locomotion but that provided from outside
The lake will bear me, a cub
It’s here that I can bring out the rhythm
A series of memories of past concerts
In caves and sweaty bars
So far from here, the vital cellist
I can only smell a day when I was nine years old
Fishing at the end of a pier
Music, completely unknown
This same late summer breeze
Not so many degrees of latitude from here
An archetype to return to
Not quite my Rosebud
Not quite missed
But like a never-ending bowl of cereal
With Scooby Doo yowling in the background
Memorials to a time before land
When miniature dinosaurs could entertain
Or teach me to read
And all I could want
Was to be picked anywhere but last
For the elementary school touch football team
I remember both the crocodile tears
And the jolly combat
None of it is seared onto me
But sometimes, out on the water, I remember
Roman Ryan 