There sleeps in the seeping ounce
of the tree burned to carbon
that made charcoal
a chance for me to take any
and all scraps of paper
I can find in my room
and put them to good use

There sleeps in the back of my mind
fragments of light
and sensations of summer
crystallizing into thought

"I want to hike four trails, around an island." I
say
but the speedy winding and the great illusion of time ticks me down
"I can only hike three"

The fourth I'll sit at its base, with my scrappy notebooks and sketch.
the burned vine will create trees    
      what immaculate a thought
to "good use"
the trunk that we took to shred and make this sheet,
to "good use", too
it'll be the paper under the black soot
when I draw

here sleeps my mind in the dark coal
ever luminous below the incomplete combustion of
hydrocarbons and the explosive nature
of untamed
emotions

"But I want to hike four trails.
Maybe, I'll have to come back"