|
Through cinderbrush,
lamp vein and the trickle of
candlewick
on a visual cool morning
the stems field lichen,
shooting
stars and crochal autumn night
with a hollow and misty tune
you are remembering she says
in the drift of pale dirt
scuffled to the side
where there is no feed for the earthworm lodged
low
or the brush of moth over the rise
a schoolbus of clamor
singular with a roadside
song
through the valley below the greyed ridges
escapes to where the
stems are leaner
and the mountains have since been scuttled along
with this awakening
tender
fingers lightly
snuffed like lighthouses
the
riddling flame
and a coverling masks the smoulder
for a while
here are your eyes
in a glow
peering through
forest
in a wrapsome vigil
and there is no departing this night
though
years have passed
relived
remembered
back
and unreal
by the chimney
slides the
walk
back porch staring westward
grey somber and blue sky
mottles
green in the trees at firelight
or the echo of porchlight
through
black
where you don't walk alone anymore
knowing fifty years have a past
aglow in flame
apart
from the sanctuary
of ties
and eyes
aged another year
has now
regrown the forest floor
or so the timbers remember
we are not empty
the remaining
cradled in
earth
under a desert sighs whispered
and repenting all those age-long
scars
the flame under a daybreak renewed
is surrounded in
ash
like memory, the stars chortle pines
and reach through
the mist
responding
A collision of warmth
presses soil between the
fingers
suckling silently in song
