12-18-2015

Things are not
The way they were,
And have not been

Since we read about
The Mississippi valley,

The way the ancient people there
Bent saplings,

Twisted trunks to angles
Bowed
Along their trails.

Trees;
Not quite trees,

The way you woke up in a town called Wauconda,

Which is a fiction,

And decided to drive into the old city
At 3 AM
To shop for records.

Is that left lying somewhere,
Still,
A terrible dream?

The impossibly tall pines,
Empty roads?

Things are not
The way you remember
The sounds your feet made
Moving through snow,
Head angled up to
The tops of trees,
Not quite trees,
Owl suspended
On the dropped-flour moon.

Things surround themselves, sometimes,

Seeking the engine
Of their own curvature,

And God nudges new matter
Into the void.