Four Strands

1.In a Summer swelter
Lime green trees
Splinter with diamond light
Against the August breeze.

The sighing moon silhouettes Black roses Beneath your proud street.
Dusted sparrow dips
Her yellow beak Into the fat pool. Soppy, shifting greens lap
At the granite tub.
Trolley cars slink along Beacon Street.

2.Tawny fields of Summer’s grass billow
The sky is big with fate
Heavy clouds roll on
like battered ships of state.

Another day drifts away
With refreshing mists wetting
The asphalt below.
Adjusting dreams---Shredding corporate schemes.

3.Beneath the haloed orange glow and on the forest floor
Near the blue rushing stream
Spins a circle dance:‘la fete Automnale’
Fire in the night.
Words rise like fallen heroes who never falter.
Firemen tearing down the flaming walls
To bring the broken child to healing water.

So many words have fallen then hoisted up again,
But not resuscitated.
They are given place,
Collected and bound,
Standing in rows,
Lining the walls
Of the memorial Library.

4.Poor, pitiful pigeon waits
On the church stoop crumbs,
His battered milky wing conjures
Golden days
Of youth’s effervescent, shimmering.
His light flickers and fades
Late into this day.

Cracked claw clinging to the clay---Linger no more,
Away I must away.

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