Lesson from a Pruned Bush

From my Retirement Collection of Poems

Pruned Bush

by Chris Manion

Sometimes, every now and then,

it's helpful to stop, 

cut way back on

activities

words

processed foods

visual input

and simply rest.

The severely pruned bush reminded me of this.

It had been so full and well, bushy.

Now it was angular, mutated,

kind of ugly if truth be told.

It had been allowed to reach out into sidewalk space,

overgrowing its boundaries,

pressing passers-by to the outer edge of the pavement.

We walk around overgrown objects, thoughts, attitudes

for years

sometimes decades

barely aware we allow them to edge us out

of our true self

of a happy life.