The Washington
College Review

Washington College: Your Revolution Starts Here

Ode to What Is Missed

Max Orsini

Maybe it's the way currencies change color.
Or the way green emanates red.
Maybe there's no Christmas anyway.

But at the base of this tree,
This old oak body,
I have soles marked with the brown of trains.

Each place I have gone looks silver to me.
My eyes are blinded by that,
By the December star left dangling in the night.

Life is a shack withering in the rain,
Until it snows and igloos become harbors
Of dreams where all the ornaments of the past are buried.

Everything is indistinguishable and silent here,
Like deer in the face of the brush,
Whose whispers sing "It is us it is us."

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