warm, windy petrichor

warm, windy night,
clouds obscuring absence of moon,
that old crater having set long before this depth of darkness

trees rustle,
their branches blurred like smudges on dark canvas,
oil against velvet

cooler than the still air,
wind’s breath brings only a whisper
of true chill

sirens and streetlights and deer snorts
mark the darkness,
city yards quiet other than the doe that stands to gauge if I’m gauging her,
the silhouette of her ears above the gleam of her eyes
all I can see of her bulk as she decides
her resting fawns are still well-hid
in the shadows where the hedge brush meets the long grasses

the lawn here grows long for them,
the blades of our mower making careful trails
to the apple tree and back, carving
large wilds of waist-high green
in which young and old graze,
hide, play

slinking through after midnight,
the cat that sprays our saplings
is not always as quiet as it thinks,
rattling the hedge brush as much as the raccoons,
familiar with the lack of human light
and boldly cantering wherever scampy paws sense mischief

at this hour the day birds are so quiet
it feels as though they maybe ceased to exist,
were a dream of flight and daring,
an imagining of melodic sound

few hours linger between this quiet
and that verse,
summer warm beneath slow-gathering storm,
evergreen reaching spikily upward,
sly shoots of red pulling matter into shape
where only air caught the sunrays before

verdant clover fragrances the pre-dawn ambiance,
rosemary and oregano from the neighbour’s garden,
pine, cedar and blossoming blackberry,
fireweed and apple trees and apricots still green,
almost erasing the gritty under-note of concrete,
warm rubber, gasoline from the last pump down the street,
plastic chairs and planters and bins to hold bags,
redolent scents of compost and garbage,
the scent and the quiet and the stillness all stirred
by storm-toting breeze
and enshrouded
in slow-building petrichor.

July 2019

the last chance

The last chance

To hold their hands,
to touch skin soft with age,
tendons tough beneath
fragrantly layered lotion.

To hear their words,
spoken in elder tongue,
dripping love,
laughter, life.

To smell their lives,
their deeply etched air
of spice and familiarity.

To linger eyes
interlocked like fingers,
searching for every nuance of meaning.

To feel the heart
that is hearth
that is home
home once ours.

For their to be an us.
For us to be a we that continues
where each of us breathes
wherein we each add stories.

For there to be an is
in place of a was.

2019