free

Spring is loosed, all birdsong and
greening, a toll sounded in
crickets and upturned bud,
the broad alarum of kids and cars,
the tone poem atmospherics
painted in stark California.
The cool breeze and bare limbs,
sundown forever on its way.

We age into our equivocations,
the long smoke of straw men and
old flames, the slow dusk of grays
and the inevitable betrayals
built into the instrument.
The sun comes out,
the cold still clinging to
the music behind your mind.

These small rooms full of
hours and dust and the words
unspoken, a remaindered
language moldering away,
boxed away behind the mind.
The unseen moon free of
this clumsy undoing,
awaiting the next breath.