Bright Green Box of Light

You don’t land in these daily

Often, not if you’re not rich

With the magic of numbers,

Lots of big numbers attached

To your own legal numbers,

Which state your full, legal name.

We can refine what rich is

Later, since no one agrees.

For now it’s this bright green box

Of light, clear windows all sides,

Trees, lake, and mountains outside,

Owned by someone else, just sold

To someone else for a box

Of magic-working numbers,

Too big for your little self.

But here you are. The last time

You woke up in one of these

Every day for a summer

Borrowed and rented like this,

Bursts of black-capped chickadees

In an ornamental tree,

You composed a poem you called

Box of Light. That was us! You

Called it home, by which you meant

To blur the room and its view

With your sense of waking up

In your own bones, in your eyes,

Not that the room was your home.

A room is never your home.

Your home is what’s within view.