I walked in the bright sunshine,
In the glad light of time alone with my wife,
In the calm of footstep after footstep,
A hawk backlit by the afternoon sun drifting,
Low over green milkweed pods and tawny dead Queen Anne's Lace,
Darting swallows around a dead tree,
The still green leaves along the river in low September sunlight,
Thinking of giant pumpkins to come,
Small yellow butterfly you flutter along with us,
Only to be followed by the regal orange-black monarchs,
The prairie flowers native to this land,
Some call them weeds the little tiny white daisies with yellow centers,
The brown of dead thistles with the occasional late blooming vivid pink,
I hold a cigar and coffee in hand strolling slowly,
And we speak of future past and present,
Hopes and dreams and wishes,
Filled lungs with the local slow breeze,
Soon enough we'll roll across the creek past weeping willows,
Burst free of the corn field into a world of concrete and brick,
Yet for the moment I feel close to the living Earth,
In synch and in time without looking once at my watch,
Feeling like a high thin white cloud over the field,
Embracing the Zen of a tree trunk that only grows in one place,
A child at play on the swings racing dandelion tufts,
Dancing on the wind in a place that deserves to live.
AquarianM
By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 09/07/2004
Author's Comments:
A slice of the afternoon - one I want to enshrine, to bottle up and take
home.
