Today’s Yesterday

Economic times rendered art school
A thing of the past for now…

Art museum guard he was.
MOMA had become his home,
With perks for him alone .

Oh how he coveted “installation floor” assignment,
That realm of passion
So instantly accessible,
So readily animate,
So much his surreal identity.

Exhibition “Garage” was special.
Each day at closing time
He would slip inside,
Grasping another day’s sensory-panacea
Where 3-in-One Oil,
Musty wipe cloths,
Decaying tire rubber,
Dust of decades past
Roused reverie he maintained perpetual.

Here was his father,
An artist’s unintended creation.
The arms.
Legs.
Muscles, and blood flow
Of memory’s living expression,
Existence exhumed from the heart ,
Inherited breath so precious,
Determined to never die.

He sat there for timeless hours

Breathing in the present past.

Such became the young man’s discovery,
Past,
Present ,
And future.
A circuitous journey
Repaved with the oneness of now.