TOO LATE

A dry leaf scuttles into non-sensual contact

with the water to sail a little while in the wind;

I am jostled from my reverie by noisy people

dressed in bright colors. From where I stand,

they look like so much non-sentient litter scattered

on the banks of the river. Their manufactured

cackles break on the rocks.

The Hemlocks drip green into the air as thick

breezes pillow their way through the humid breath of

the forest while I wander off the trail. A perfect Poplar

sapling sacrifices itself to my knife. I drop strips of

smooth bark, a yellow trail to follow home and will

keep this stick, a memento of that time I escaped into

a mirror of who I am, when everything smiled at the

quantum entanglement of itself and me.

Some niggling thing nudges me to pause, the light

is gold dapples, the breath of Pines and Maple like

airy syrup. I plant the end of my staff on a rock,

close my eyes and lean into the things that made me;

The Book of John, Jules Verne, Graham Greene,

D. H. Lawrence, Tolkien, Bukowski, like my guts were

painted by some cross between Renoir, Picasso

and O’Keefe, so I fit in. My perceptions match my dreams,

my expectations in pieces on the shoulders of the road.

There is movement on the water where the

ledge that dips its toes into the pool and

the sky floats on passing clouds, a young

woman with ginger feet slides headfirst into

the mirror with barely a ripple and my smile

turns to a grin I can carry with me all the

way to Buzzard’s Roost, a cold IPA and a

long vista into the smoky distance.

Copyright

Vol Lindsey

12/15/2021

Reviews

[Lorry]

Well, as the saying doesn't go, last things first... I would have joined you in that cold IPA, right up until long covid and the doc telling me to cut anything carbonated from my diet, so no more beer, soda, and I even get that "get on the naughty step" look if I so much as think of drinking tap water, which isn't carbonated, but does have trace amounts of fluoride etc, which break down in the gut as gases and.... Now I see why first things first is the rule.
sorry, got distracted by dreaming of an ice cold Caffreys and...
ill start again.
Don't you just love when your thoughts can follow a leafs journey, minus the noise, until distracted by noise and colour and well, I now understand why city folk put the hackles up on more out of the way folk. It's like they need to be seen and heard just to justify their own pointlessness. Pretending to have fun while they rot from the inside.
Your words bring calmness of thought and nature together, that can only be heard in the calm of non city life.
and as is usual in these situations, I bet those city folk had no clue how close they were to your own personal heaven, as they scamper back to their hell 😊

[Vol]

Lorry,
Thank you for this excellent, thoughtful,response. I wish I'd had you along in some of the classes I taught. I've read. several british novels of late where there is a scene when Sherlock Holmes or some one else would with draw to a window with a book... I'd give my kids a poem and have them analyze it. I'd guide them through symbolism and theme, imagery, and voice, but now I think of it, I don't believe I ever told them that sitting quietly and reading one when nothing else was going on, that there is a certain kind of joy in getting lost where a poet takes you. For five minutes, maybe ten, you can find some humanity inside yourself. I just took it for granted that they would do that on their own. In America, our educational system has become more and more soulless over the last thirty years, till I'm not sure it has one at all, any more.