______
I make no requests upon you -- so
we are at peace.
Your demands do not assail me.
The number eight is a promise of infinity
from the confines of mortality.
Do not be ashamed:
it is a frothy age, full of ignorance and life.
The horizons of eight are near, near indeed,
to be such unimagined heights & distant dreams.
In the autumn I smell the aroma of my death:
several years hence yet, I think,
and more potent so. It is the smell of
falling, drying, a returning and surrender to the Earth.
Your heels strike heavy on the Earth.
Unnecessarily; a grace of mind
is lightness, bedeviling gravity.
His pink child's knapsack matches well
his cold professional suit, demeanor, and
his daughter's contented peace.
Slow! But yes, there is a third floor, son,
whose locked and hallowed spaces
fill your daydreams:
a quiet place, peopled by grave adults
bored and overfamiliar. They do not dream
except of places known, faint-remembered,
well-photographed, islands of sun-sand and childhood.
Nothing grand, imagined, as you so easily compose.
Now slow! Watch for the cars.
(They are carrying it
across the street again.
Do they only have the one?)
photo courtesy of my brother
oct 2010
