I Stepped Outside Myself
  
 I put on a sweater and a coat and a hat
And stepped outside myself.

Yes, I’d been outside before, 
But never more than an arm’s length away

I’d been beside myself, many times,
But rarely outside myself,
And when I looked back 
I saw a rather quaint, a bit old-fashioned,
A closed in gingerbreadhouse 
kind of place.

But once I’d stepped outside myself
just far enough I couldn’t walk back 
through that door again
though it seemed so dreadfully safe.

I walked away.

I was glad for the accoutrements as it was cold outside
and the wintry mistiness made everything seem so hazy.
Looking back I wondered if I would ever find myself again.  

I shivered, and moved on.
 
  
 Time Misspent Lament
  
 Every day too short 
 to finish what I wish 
 Every day too filled 
 with taking sitz and pish  
  
 Too much sleep required 
 for constant overwork 
 Too much sleep a waste 
 like dancing when it’s twerk 
  
 Ev’ry brush of hair 
 or showering excesses 
 Ev’ry razor’s shave 
 swiped only to impress’us 
  
 Every phish that’s caught 
 on rod and reel electric 
 Every Trojan horse 
 deleted quite frenetic 
  
 Time goes by anon 
 without or with intention 
 Time cares not one whit 
 our thought or inattention. 
  
  
 
   
 A Frozen Tableau
  
  
 Snowy white backdrop
 with trees and other
 landmarks
 like cars, and houses,
 and people walking by
 sticking darkly out
 like brush strokes on
 a painting.
  
 Like a frozen tableau
 which will be gone
 with the sun, the
 brush strokes remaining
 and the backdrop strangely
 gone.
  
 Sometimes the things which
 seem the most permanent,
 are the most transitory,
 and the most provisional,
 well, the most durable.
  
  Hard to guess which is which
 until your backdrop has melted away.
  
 ...and then it's hard to trust what's left.
 For fear those brush strokes will fade
 away
 as well.
  
 In what do we place our trust?
 What cannot be taken/stolen/
 plundered from our cabinet, our
 secret hiding places deep inside
 that we don't allow anyone else
 to see,
 our treasure, our
 little dreams
 about the world
 we thought
 mom and dad
 gave to us?
    
 Once that treasure trove
 our little dream of what life
 was supposed to be like
 is plundered,
 what is left
 for us to build a life around?
  
 Because sometimes that's the real question,
 isn't it?
  
 Underneath snowfall scenery and
 rivulets of the melted lie the immutable.
 That which doesn't change if nature
 is left to its own devices.
 The unassailable
  
 cycle of regeneration and growth,
 the ecology of the human psyche,
 the need for love and human touch,
 the need to love, and to touch,
 the need to learn, always learn
 and explore, the inborn unconditionality
 of motherlove to child and childlove to
 motherdear, the sacredness
 of each human.
  
 Hands broken from pummeling frozen
 backdrops which melted away
 leaving only water to pound against
 nothing solid, only ephemerality
 to punch against, no satisfying
 crunch of hand against something
 which hurts, because it all hurts
 more because of the powerlessness
 of hitting nothing which hits back. And so punching
 oneself into bloody unconsciousness
 takes the place of lashing the world.
  
 Snow comin' down now, like the sweet
 rain which washes the dirt away, the
 regeneration begins, and then freezes,
 pretending to be reality, an end-product
 for awhile, when it's only
 a part of the cycle.
   
 I have put my heart upon the frozen
 backdrop and had to rip it away,
 I have felt the cleansing wash of tender
 flakes of cold against my cheek take the
 pain away.
  
 I sit still watching snowy backdrops
 or melted streams of icy water, or sunlit
 days with rain chasing after. I am me,
 despite all, and the cycle of life I face
 changes not, though
  
 the frozen backdrop tableau
 seems awfully cold this year.
 In a little while it will melt and
 the cycle of composition
 begin again. 
  
 If I'll let it.



   

Michael Kroth is an Associate Professor in the Adult, Organizational Learning and Leadership Program at the University of Idaho – Boise.  He has written or co-authored five books including Transforming Work: The Five Keys to Achieving Trust, Commitment, and Passion in the Workplace (2001); The Manager as Motivator (2006); Career Development Basics (2009); and Managing the Mobile Workforce: Leading, Building, and Sustaining Virtual Teams (2010). Stories of Transformative Learning is his latest book. His latest project is Profound Living with Michael Kroth (www.profoundliving.live), an online site with essays, photos, and poetry dedicated to contemplating what it means to live a profound life.

These poems have been posted on my Profound Living or my Profound Bartender blogs sites but have not been published elsewhere.