The Bats in the Willow
Etched against the fading grey
Nestled deep in the hollow
Where the tree frogs hummed
And the spring breeze curled up to rest
Beneath the spindly branches of winter
sleeping in the sog and the bog on the banks of the creek
Is the willow
Where I paused
First to announce that winter
Is surrendering its icy grasp
To hope
To the breath of warm sun
The glowing green leaves
Begin their sweeping, falling
Journey as they reach and weep
My hand caresses the rough bark
Daylight has not released its charge
To dusk and the neighborhood basks
Rests suspended in the peace of
In between time
Glowing in the hominess of porch lights
Gathering stray kids exploring
Ready to lapse into quietude
I think my willow is slumbering
While bats dart, dash, and click
Their way in and around the willow
Throwing their questions, ideas, warnings
Like an old familiar life line
That commands and answers
Eluding disaster, adjusting course
Delivering messages that are always received
I wish I could echolocate
Under the willow, hidden in the soft rustling
Leaves the bats could teach me
To know before I asked
To aim and always achieve
To avoid before disaster
To intercept and redirect failed attempts of others
To think back, summon up, dwell upon,
I never know the way
Brilliant in the claimed night sky
The overture of the stars
Accompanies the creatures in the hollow
Urging while the evening wakes
Beneath the wispy fingers of the tree
On the mossy banks of the creek
Beneath the willow
Where I paused.
Revenant Gloam
She often attended my manic
ruminations
“Invisible agent, unyielding meddler, the Past
howls
its declarations
that it will expose me
obdurate specter
wretched wraith
manifesting hallways to pace
walls to scrape
air in which to shriek
precious objects to shatter
visions to pollute
with vague and false calls
palpable deception
stomping and rioting
lies in tongues
which terrorize this moment
in odious taunts
with incorporeal haunts
murking the reasons
for these visitations
these possessed spooksthese eidolons of pain
claiming me
during the
revenant gloam”
the silence sat
still and sullen and wrung out
“The ghosts don’t like you,” she mumbled finally
I reached for her
but
she had gone
She’ll be back.
I Cannot Make Permanent Things
Torrents of seasons
deposited the dregs and dross
perishable remnants
impermanent sediment
on the dislodged boards
and shifting ramp of the
tree fort
where I stand under sheets of rain
I cannot utter immutable words
Ephemeral and fugitive to the constant
slippery with the unconcluded
echoes of our voices
holding court
banishing bad guys
saving all manner of oppressed folk
justice delivered via
rules of the kingdom chalked on the walls
where squirrels now nibble
I cannot compel irreversible change
Unabiding residuum of
sheathed swords
retired buckets
smelly fish nets
careening in a monsoon
of honorable intentions
to seal the tree fort
tomorrow
when grander ideas
hailed the days
and the weeks
then the months and the years
I cannot navigate a perpetual path
Enduring rain altered the course of the
water that rages
neath the fort
wringing me out
pelting the remains of
my dam
so the trickle has deluged
into a gushing certainty
I cannot stop the drenching future
the rhythmic approaching of
the untried
the unfamiliar
unrelenting in its swirl about my ankles
eternal and undying
prevailing even without my readiness
to wash myself clean of
this March that rains down on me
while I fight to stay afloat
in the face of my recognition that
I cannot make permanent things