It was summer, remember?
The world belonged to big
people, parents and other
adults, all big. Except for
a gift, the morning after
a lightning storm.
Puddles glistened, crows were
silent, fishermen made their
momentary appearances in oil
paint before you made them
all disappear: their boats, the
telephone wires, the summer
cottages, everything erased
except light and trees
and water.
Every thing appeared again later
after you opened your eyes.
You were a child, remember?
You, the one who disappeared
miles and years ago?
The trees and the lake haven’t
paid the slightest attention
to your absence.
You were a wiser child then,
when you knew nothing, when
a luminescent summer
morning opened its forest
arms, as dark and deep as
a storm at night, as wild
and blue as the wings of
your imagination.
Ideal without being idealized. The slight hesitation, then revelation that comes with each of the many “enjambments” in the accompanying poem. The dark, the light, the wet, the dry, the ideal, the unidealized found especially in the “in your face” telephone lines. It’s all quite beautiful, without being beautified. “You know what I mean? You know what I mean.”