Disembodied, I float through
Sultry, languorous cool
In the glowing green of
A darkened night’s shadow

A rumbling street cleaner’s
Distantly-wailing, brush-powered
Vacuum trundling away loamy decay

I remember
The face of death
The kiss of life
The rapturous odor of cleanliness
Full of sterility and absence

Versus a rain swept undulation
Of baby walnut and scratchy leaf flake
The traversing bend of
half darkness reeling soppily
Through blazing firmament

There is a raging rebellious impulse in me at times
To not grasp at the willowy water reeds
To not pull back the curtain
Of petals hiding a
Foundling’s pulsing fat hand

To not shoulder any wheel or crank
Or grind a man-made electricity from
rusty gears

But simply to listen
As songs are sung
As each thought vibrates
Like a string on a harp

Carved from a mountain
And laced up with streams
Pounding on some silently sparkling
Rock under the wet grass
Scores of yards below my feet