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As I count crows
sitting on the drooping clothesline,
I see a shape in the distance
that I do not recognize
I move a little closer
but the maples sling a sad shade
and the lawn flashes its blades,
cutting directly to the heart
in syncopated beatings
like chopping wood in the heat of August
when the last saw
is locked away in the shed

Still I look,
peering beyond a fractured arbor
of beer bottle skeletons situated at the far corner
of nowhere’s homestead,
over off-white pickets and a rusted gate
now overgrown and oversown
in rows of corn field miseries,
shucked and burned in a steel barrel
down where the Mud Creek Minstrels
play cracked violas with stretched strings
in bent tuba concertos

When I realize it is you...coming home to me,
walking through brilliant sunflowers,
an effervescent blue sky background glows,
roses bloom in dazzling pinks and yellows,
robins tend to their young beneath a rainbow of blessings
in assorted hues and feathers,
butterflies now dance upon sweet fragrance simmerings
and what was once a dream that had slowly disintegrated
into a wasteland littered of heartache and despair
vanishies before my tearing eyes
as I run towards you in the bright sunshine
that has returned…once again