Thursday, April 2, 2020

Taking Account for My 73rd Birthday


How many towns? How many places where
I have lived my life? More than I care to remember.

Places, as a child and into my teenage years, with one
parent or the other, at first it was all together, I count five.

That was before I enlisted in the Army at age seventeen.
Uncle Sam fed and billeted me from here to Germany in
three different locations.

After all that for me, the rent or mortgage came due
once a month, year in and year out.

No big deal, most everyone of modest responsibility must pay.

Kansas City was a three-time city; St. Louis, three times as well;
Albuquerque was a one-timer; Denver, twice, and Longmont,
Colorado another two-timer for me. Lakewood and Edgewater,
Colorado thrown in there too at one residency each.

At last count, twenty eight places I have occupied for 6-months
or more in the aforementioned cities—
houses,
mobile home,
studio,
basement,
and one bedroom apartments.

For years and years, throughout my life, more years
and moves than I care to remember.
And yet, one consistency was afforded me throughout
my history here on Planet Earth—
I have never lived anywhere the rent didn’t come due.

And as a seasoned veteran of time and place, I can definately
say, likelihood is, I’m not done yet. Eventually, the crematory or
cemetery are going to count for something too.

In and out, up and down, spinning like a top round and round
from place to place—Life in perpetual motion for me as sometimes
defined by the uneven lines and random rhymes of my poetry.

                                       -30-

Chris Hanch 4-1-2020

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