When, what word
Or vision was the seed?

But fruition came in spring
On a restless radiant night
Awash with screaming lusty spirits,
And we sought her blindly--
Or she sought us,
Brought us down the dip
Into her hollow,
Her cupped hand on the
Lap of Mt. Ogden,
Weedy wooded rift,
With heart a miry tarn.

And we reveled in her
Broken-treed-old-farm mix--
Invaded deciduous--
And bookless spoke
Home truth uninhibited:
Names, places, tales and
Tokens of the heart.

And restively subdued,
She waited, watched and listened
To our intercourse,
As light from her canopied shadow
Streamed inward;
As fibers of oak and primrose,
Poplar and bramble
Wove themselves inextricably
Into our youthful hearts,

Only to tug years later--
Tempting to older fruit--
Fleshy berries hung
On foreign twigs--
A heartless harvest--
The truthless invaded
Deciduous of middle age.

06/07/2002

Author's Note: For Terry, Steve, and Skip.

Posted on 11/10/2002
Copyright © 2024 Leonard M Hawkes