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Paul Sylvester Eifert, Jr. USA
Reflections from the Moon
I
am sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon
looking in through the gray above the green
hanging over the black shingle roof
of
the room where I am sitting.
I
can't see me resting here.
The
days of my youth are out my window
through a hole in the trees in the still Autumn night.
I
must rise to the call of the bread truck man,
to
the whinny of the rag picker's horse,
to
the distant clanking
of
a slow freight train.
So
far away on the stone faced moon,
how
long my ears have thirsted
to
drink the sounds they cannot drink again,
to
sponge the voices from the streets of my youth
and
squeeze them back a drop at a time.
Sitting on the surface of the stone faced moon,
I
can see the globe rolling cars upon it.
Outside my window into Autumn is
the
incessant din of transportation,
the
percussion of outbound movement
toward the stone faced moon
where I sit.
Fall in the
Park
The
last November leaves hang like children's voices
over vacant playground swings. I watch the wind
walk a careful weave between them, nudging,
stroking motherly at each as if in consolation.
My
gentlest hand sends them off; but it was not I
nor
was it the wind, who one time strokes and soon
one
time comes scattering, that took the youth from them.
It was not I
but
they, content to linger long after season
where the squeaks of rusty chains pile up and tiny footprints
in
the sand are brushed away - they were loathe to be
what had become of them. And if, by my gentlest hand,
if
by a scattering wind, they were made to be, what then?
A
moment more and yet a moment more none harm,
to
live with them the fantasy of Spring.
Copyright, Paul Sylvester Eifert, Jr. |
