Mortal Drams

A river, distant, the lake it feeds into silver and oblong between blurry hills. Dreams of trout that signify what? Welcomed at last into a community only to find that even community has got to be walked past.

Don't covet certain words like map or elephant or whiskey distillery. Bells in the distance archiving sound. Where the trail turns a badger waits, panting in the heat.

Part of what is lost can be found by studying deer prints in which last night's brief rain remains puddled. Or perhaps the soft crab apples fallen in the ferns. Blue glass held up to the sun which we recently learned will expire like the rest of us but not as fast.

Angels, orders of magnitude. Your New York apartment in which I told a fatal lie, the half-tones of which continue to rumble. Into the bracken!

Working with rakes while the horses all eyeball us expecting the worst. Withdraw fear and you are left with the Kingdom, which is all there ever was anyway. Those who have ears . . .

A return compromised by dreams of beginning. The dragonfly hovers, seeking its mortal drams. The fox trotted alongside the road because it was easier traveling and he had places to go and things to do.

We are not fools, not prophets, not ideal. Falling into love with the velocity of stones!