Hello and welcome back to the daily poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by a man named Joshua Allen Sturgel.

Now, if you have ever been to a Circe conference or at least one in the last 10 years or so,

then you probably would recognize that name,

but you might not recognize it for the reason that you might think. He wasn't a speaker. He's never

spoken or anything like that, although he would be a good speaker. He actually is a salesman,

or not a purveyor of great books with eighth day books, one of the best bookstores in the world.

He comes each and every year and sets up a display and sells books and hangs out with us. And he has a new collection

of poetry out called As Far as I Can Tell. It's out now from Darkly Bright Press and I wanted to

share a poem in here that I quite enjoyed.

It's called As Though a Seed, and it goes like this.

As though a seed, I waken my childhood home, and my parents are young again.

Familiar toys. Small bed, blue clock, a pair of elephants. Tall stove where my father cooks the weekend meals, the leaning. Single car garage by the swings as though I judge time authentically.

Standing within my child hand, gripping the older hand wrapped in roads. Ohio without its

single woolen cloud.

My friends and our imaginations make the street a river and the sun,

a planet from tree's roots,

secret worlds of alleys and stairs.

As when my window eastward facing held a picture of the downtown day

and to that everday I recede.

Evening to afternoon, noon to morning, back in through all the layers of perfect make-belief.

...