A crack in the shell

I liked the way your have captured the journey of your mind let loose from a comfort zone to those people and places you would like to visit and then your mind returns home to compare it with your own and leave the reader to imagine if you feel good for what you are blessed with or feel bad for those who are not so lucky in the world we live....

at least that is the way i perceived it ...i could be right or totally off track...
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the red wheelbarrow! I like it! You have some great lines here and I will tell you some that struck me in particular.

polished by years, [but] yet covered by barnacles [I would delete yet covered] and use the shorter [but]. But... it's your poem.

tagging along with their thirty-five year old grandmother
right into the red belly full of mulch [delete the lines about dangerous schools, you already put forth the idea that schools are dangerous these days, just by inclusion of the word schoolyard.
an opera singer who lost her voice due to the promising nothing of chemo.

Some great lines! ~ Geezer.
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strating

strating !!!!!

A unique suggestion toying with the interpretation of the WCW poem, which are many. Volumes worth. (i think you meant detached, not detouched, in the comments)

Interesting to symbolize a clam or mussel with the imagination, (refined taste) protected by a shell unbothered by the unwelcome barnacles.. So if the shell cracks, the aloof comfort of the imagination (Bach) will be exposed to the sadness of reality (Africa, Opera singer loosing voice) as well as acts of good and kindness (saving a dog, saving lives)
But why a one in a million chance to find that zone again?

I would like to suggest the wheelbarrow will "roll away." The idea of the wheelbarrow taking human or animal form to run away is confusing. (It can "wheel into the world", that verb works)
Personally I do not prefer the Africa stanza, twiggy arms and age of the grandmother makes the statement too socio-economic and pulls me away from the inherent metaphysics in the poem. It's too far away, it is it's own poem. Rather it be closer to home, perhaps something more personal
like the opera singer has in the poem, although I question the "promise nothing chemo" as again pulling us away from the theme.

This is a very difficult poem, but there is a there there. The combinations of important elements in the poem- the shell, the actual wheel barrow poem itself, it is an intellectual adventure, one that is deeply felt by you but I think will change considerably as you live with it longer, and revise and edit. It's a good start, and does engage the reader to reconsider the WCW poem in different terms...your terms.

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I love this idea, of taking an established poem and "cracking the shell", adding onto it, taking the poem in another direction, that enhances or questions or explains further the original poem. I've never seen something like that. it's interesting that you put a bullet through the wheelbarrow, like you were somehow killing WCW's poem, perhaps. lol. something so hallowed in the hall of poetry. very fun read.