grub worms, grave gravity,
failed romances, the fate of the Great Auk,
a death too young, a silent sacred dance
of butterflies

all flow behind my eyes
song lyrics whose melodies
never quite reach my ears, so
I plop verses on a page

an elder adolescent sage  
writing in riddle, sometimes rhyme, committing
the crime of filching grist born of life's abundant mill,
and bastardizing it, carelessly, at will