A Cast of Strangers–Rachel Barton

A stranger walks beside you
casting seeds into the wind
See how they fly helter-skelter like
a sheet of starlings or the swirling
chaff of years past like so many minnows
schooling or dispersing

Maybe a stranger casts you off from shore–
a slipped stitch in a sea of pearls–
the dinghy small in a great slough
the craft’s chine inclined to narrow
and you a bit wobbly
until you settle on the bare board
of a bench and begin to row

It won’t be a stranger casts you out
–ne’er-do-well pub crawler
or even worse some demon spawn–
but your own kin sick of your stink
–bad habits like fish gone off–
and no remedy for it but absence

‘til a stranger comes again to lift you up
from the cold cobbles of despair and self-loathing
Casting about for a purchase you seize
on her robe and all becomes light
You see the crystalline web
that binds us–animal vegetable mineral—

and at that moment a silver cast to your hair
your bones home at last in weathered skin
a constellation of moles and liver spots
a small company of barnacles
(which do not seem strange to you at all)
O frabjous day–the journey begins

Wow! This was a difficult challenge–to use a word/concept in a variety of contexts. This is my draft, so far, which may evolve as the month proceeds.