The Matter of Time

Remember this house as I have,
Emerging from the hillside,
As any boulder would, assumed here by glaciers years ago, that ancient ice white Thumbed out by this wilderness and its deepest greens.
Infant toothpick trees stand at finite attention,
While their mothers and fathers slightly bend toward the sun,
Yawning Carbon, begging to be climbed.
Their long arms, calculating-room for solitary birds,
Until the ground begs for their tough skin, to slowly consume their absurd age,
And in the quiet shade of night, worms will hole through these collapsed grandparents,
Futilely engaged in damp fertile decay.

Mornings I’d cut loose the dogs,
Safely knowing they’d run not far, toward the limestone graves,
Of all my old friends that they have replaced.
I’m sure of their ghosts, and other nameless ghosts,
Who wander these lonely wooded archives, calmly following winds,
Passing through them, through us,
Distinguishing life from death.

Stone after precious stone, lying across the edge of the yard,
Each older than myself,
Like Earth against the galaxy,
I once stood bold, atop them all,
Imagining myself the combined hero of every war fought,
In the great shadow of the house.
For entire summers, before lunch, out of boredom,
I captured the redcoats and the confederates together,
The ninjas, and the Nazis,
I was God in the pasture my television.
Sticking my tongue down the throats,
Of all the beautiful girls rescued.

The bottomless lakes, my only neighbors,
Reptilian community of sunbathing snakes,
Stretched out on their private rocks,
Like pin-ups asleep on the beach. Fanged lushes segregating beauty, drunk off heat.
We only share the unkempt grass growing abundant from the water to my porch. Thankfully, the mower is rusted and brown where it should be red,
And I won’t have to struggle with it up the steep yard today,
To give it a haircut, like I used to, in fear that it might lift, fall back and devour me, Sucked in then out, head to toe,
Gravity passing through a wormhole,
Made mulch, much like the sound of twigs through its blades,
But right now I miss the beautiful smell of a freshly scored lawn.

Bird songs compete over a choir of insects, my dog’s listen, ears perked,
Intent as me.

In tall grass I wait for the next breeze.
To sweep away my halo of bees and gnats,
Circling like bloodthirsty vultures.
I consider my childhood into one long day,
As I’m sure I’ll eventually think of today and all the ones after as part of the same.
Antique with this lovely yard, I float, one of the ghosts, in the matter of Time,
Enjoying the slowest day.