Hey, Chris: There's Probably A Poem In Here, If You DigConsider dumpsters. More often than not, when encountered in the wild, they are already somewhat full of whatever it is they are there to carry, nearly always fulfilling purpose. They, too, are more often than not filled with the debris of construction in reverse, laded up with the trappings of things previously built, cleared out and cut up and tossed with little ceremony into a big box to become memory. We do this to make room for new things; some day, too, all that we do today will take the place of the things that they took the place of. Note, too, the amount of it all: it says many things when one has need of so large a refuse bin. A lot can be seen in the nature of a trash can.
Consider...dumpsters. The things themselves. They are massive, stout, built to take tremendous punishment, and often carry the tells of such suffered. The lines of them should be arrow straight, but they are not: with care, place an eye on the lip of one and look along, to see the warp and wave where things large and heavy once crashed down in moments of bad aim. With care, run fingertips over the dents and dings that make a landscape of the panels of cold steel, with more care in the spots where something has managed to punch through, introducing new topology, letting in light. I think it would be strange to see a new one, shiny and perfect and straight. They are brave things, dumpsters, with long shoulders weary from their time. A lot can be seen in the nature of a trash can.
Place a young child in the front yard, looking up at the long horizon line of the dumpster, hulking in the driveway, forcing the family car ignominiously into the street to part under the elm that grows between the sidewalk and the pavement. The dumpster is there to receive the detritus of the remodel. The child cannot see in, for they are not so tall, but somethings heave up into view, piled on other things. The child can see half of the sink, tipped up into view, the sink where they brushed teeth and washed hands before sleep. The child can only wonder at this new place for this familiar fixture, perhaps not knowing that it would soon be gone, too. The parents are happy to finally get rid of the lime green enamel.
The fireflies surprised me tonight, in the back yard: a small storm of soft green light.
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