On A Footpath My Feet

The retreats of
solitary
daydreaming

Time
in silent notches --

And from station
to station
searchlight of
idle love

vamping distance.


Her fingering
flowers

like the pale
night moth

trailing a black
dress
without strewing
it or fleeing.

“So now you’re
a fellow
path lover, eh?”  “Yes. Since the grasses grew high and the trees
bent my way.” 

What’s it like, one asks, to
diverge with
distance

as helpful
meaning
emerges from
the dotted line
of furs,

helpful and
well meaning --

proffers
canvas deck chairs

to polite
applause,

even as the
cicada sings
its Summer
aria, 

where we find
sustained pleasure
in the crook
of a low-slung

branch

-- or turning rocks, or
peeling green moss

as the kitchen linoleum curls
five generations of scuff-
marks like feathery clouds in memory’s sky
at sunset?  Rapidly torn
silhouettes.