Glorious dots swirl above our heads like millions of
glowing bees as we spin arms outstretched.

The air is warm while the earth is cool beneath bare feet
And a light mist rises among the pecan orchard trees.

I want to keep this place living in our minds.  We can
Never grow old in this childish embrace of memory.

The nights have grown cool again, like the nights
Of early spring, and quiet again. Will
Speech disturb you? We're
Alone now; we have no reason for silence.

Can you see, over the garden-the full moon rises.
I won't see the next full moon.

In spring, when the moon rose, it meant
Time was endless. Snowdrops
Opened and closed, the clustered
Seeds of the maples fell in pale drifts.
White over white, the moon rose over the birch tree.
And in the crook, where the tree divides,
Leaves of the first daffodils, in moonlight
Soft greenish-silver.

We have come too far together toward the end now
To fear the end. These nights, I am no longer even certain
I know what the end means. And you, who've been
With a man--

After the first cries,
Doesn't joy, like fear, make no sound?

In the night they searched
For their surroundings to sustain them
For their choices to be enough
For their lives to have meaning

One roamed the nights here
The other roamed its home there
Searching through shadows
Trying in vain
To live up to the task of living

Together only in dreams
Wild and free
Unseen by those who did not matter
Noticed only by those
Whose time leached into the shadows

And in the night they searched
To be fulfilled both within and without
Left hungry wrapped in their thoughtful empty choices
Starved in darkness yearning to be sated
Their bright colors hued gray in the night

Passing, never having been sated
Spirits rose and were united at last
Finding in death what they lost among the living
Never to be seen but in the shadows of yesterday





.

Because if I don't mourn for them, who will?
No one will remember them
Soon thousands, millions of lives-
Poured through the hourglass
To be lost beneath the sands of eternity-
Forgotten forever

And no one even noticed

In my town
    The streets are paved
         With gold
              Because the rain
            Runs an infinitely unfinished race
        And the streets
   Are run thick with sky
       That swills above blocked drains
            And the street lamps
               Take a bathe in the puddles
                  And their lights
                       Unravel and swim
                     And sometimes
                  The wind gusts through
              And lacerates the
           Rivers of hoarded treasure
       So that our good fortune
           Is molten and fickle
             But somehow viscous
                  And the promises
                        Of our childhood
                            Wrinkle like
                               Aging skin

In my town
       The streets are paved with gold
           And so are the broken pieces
   Of their beer bottles.