Wasting no time,
in haste and thirst
we came to summer,
swinging...
making our own kind of hay
and playing a new kind of game,
with dizzy drinks,
jazzy music,
hazy-crazy
cigarettes and kisses,
and aware of other dangers,
the wolfish ways of
friends turned strangers...
love,
as fierce,
as rapacious,
in spite of all the shoutings
and the warnings of approach,
with no one ready
when the roof blew in.
How we ran!
By autumn, to be sure,
we knew the tricks and character of sticks...
Nursing bruised heads
and burnt fingers,
we shook the straw
from our pockets
and settled down...
to play it safe
this time
we thought,
with a solid house,
genuine antique furniture
furniture
and homogenized children,
finding a good night's rest
harvest enough
for such sound dreams
as conscience feeds on...
not hearing the creaks
beyond our snores,
the furtive glide
outside our doors,
until one rainy day,
what a storm!
Then winter came...
and we knew then, there was no escape.
Not again,
not even with bricks
reinforced by steel
over a concrete shelter,
for our pressure is high,
our metabolism low,
and we can no longer
run...
We have set traps,
posted prizes,
sent out scouting parties,
and armed ourselves...
Waking at night
and trembling,
we cry, "Peter
Peter, please come,
we need you!"
knowing
only his toy gun
can save us.
How the wind comes through...
FINAL PERFORMANCE
A spinner in the green years, I trudge the snowdeep woods
to find the Rima trees where I was warm in silk through
those first winters. Then the unwinding thread,
from which I swung by two spare arms and legs,
hung in the air like a gay trapeze, each vine
humming to the brace and pull and reel of child's
spider ways, an upside down dancer with her feet
in the clouds and the heart in her mouth a feast.
A beginner in the green years, my thick wool thumbs push back
the broken twig, the empty nest, the closed gray flaps
to summer's ringling tent. Embarrassed, I lift
a rose still red and moist and soft. Again I twist
its thin stem toward the light and dare the sky
to seize my heels and trick time's crafty eyes
till I repair the web and climb to one last height
before I leap —— —— —— to catch the hands of night.