The Quest for Smithereens of Truth

"It’s in the busted minds of troubled offspring, or among bones not quite picked clean, or poking out of the smithereens of collapse that I think the true truths are found."

Bill Cotter, Issue208 of The Paris Review 

Now you tell me. I’ve been seeking truth in all the wrong places.

Handymen have been repairing years of neglect on my house and in the process have made big piles of rotten wood, stripped wiring, broken flower pots, abandoned lawn ornaments decomposing cardboard boxes filled with sprinkler parts to systems no longer extant, and paint cans with 4 ounces of dried orange paint in the bottom but which have to be separated and dumped as hazardous waste.

Before they finish loading the piles into the truck to take to the dump, I should sift through these smithereens of collapse. 

I will not be deterred in my quest for truth. If I don’t find anything, I’ll sing the Lionel Richie song "Sunday Morning" into a fan. Perhaps I should get a tetanus shot first.