What I Assume

Some Things Organic, Some Mechanic

Autumn leaves in Springtime, mashed or matted,
dried and pallid through the frozen months
remind me of my son:

Five-years-old in October and falling
into lumpy leaf piles, reaching at the aura of magic they still retain,
the budded green from which they grew,
the way they whisked about in the winds of summer,
shaded his eyes in hot july, and tangled with a flying toy.

Wars in space come easy, as future racing cars, and dragon fantasies.
but he would not guess why the plane his great-uncle flew crashed,
assumed it was shot down, or sabatoged,
mixed up my description of a DC-2
with a photo of a lithe little Curtis Hawk,
who’s wings he imitated in a dive.
He popped his cheeks, a parachute blooming orange in the sunset
before shuddering to a safe, if sudden, landing behind enemy lines
He expected the brave pilot, in black and white, buried his silky friend
before making a quick escape beneath the same starry black sheet
that now and then peeks in from his bedroom window.

Like leaves that fall in the night, unseen, he could not yet know
sixty years ago in Sainte-Mère-Église
hundreds of the same tiny parachutes cascaded down
and if the anchors that weighed evaded the flames of foreign buildings
burnt to light the night,
if alive upon landing fell victim to NAZI machine guns.

For him it is all soft pillow,
a story good or bad, to ease the anxious stillness between lights off
and pushing away thick blankets to feel freely a radiant morning
until, for the first time, morning pushes back
and cotton to time is spun.

I proposed to Chris Lott that we tackle a poetic form this weekend as part of our poem-per-day regiment for National Poetry Month. I chose the villanelle.

The Time Between

As Earth revolves the sun ceases to be
pale dawn, and morning fresh will souls engage
to call out, "Come here, dad, come here and see."

Stiff brained at six, though physically I'm free,
still tracked and trundled for an abstruse wage
as Earth revolves and sun ceases to be.

And settling in my mind with books and tea
my child toddles in with scribbled page
and calls out, "Come here, dad, come here and see."

He's led by his map; I'm led by his plea.
He sees a brambled fortress, I, a cage
as Earth revolves and sun ceases to be.

I had youth once, I swelled with fantasy,
now leashed to Khronos, I may not assuage
his calls of, "Come here, dad, come here and see."

We gain, we lose. There are some things that we
cannot count, the weight we cannot gauge
in calls of, "Come here, dad, come here and see."
And Earth revolves as sun ceases to be.