Sawdust and wood scraps
all over the drive.
Began a full sweep
around the perimeter.
Each broom stroke
moved the mess
toward a center pile.
It got me thinking.
Social messes require similar sweeping.
Get all the random people
that don’t fit the mission
into a heap or a center.
It takes many turns
around the edges,
with less and less escaping
until all the unwanted stuff
is in the center.
More than sawdust now.
Dried leaves, pieces of plastic.
Sweeping up deviance
means pushing rejects into a pile,
or a center. It means calling them
garbage, calling them toxic.
It's slow and tedious.
Then what?
Dump? Burn?
Scatter in some
remote part of the yard?
Round and round I sweep.
Questions propagate like the dust.
What is this desire to have
things look orderly and clean?
Why didn't I cut over open ground?
Who paved the drive that I am sweeping?
Is paving and sweeping linked
like mountains and valleys?
What kind of consciousness
compares people with dust?