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and influenced by prompt #9 at Magpie Tales…
•
that moon
that child
hold eternity’s promise in share
colorful pails on the ocean’s beach
festooned in starfish and octopus
campfire’s ‘neath a canopy of forever stars
jelly and jam on crustless bread
lipstick smeared on a giddy grin
the world of pretend
the strum of imagination
that brings song to the young heart
the thrill of dance to a child’s feet
like god’s marionette
that drives away the limp of sorrow
but now
summer’s nocturne
has robbed the colors of the day
families gather to reminisce of
the reds oranges blues
the violets and periwinkles
so as not to forget
in hopes that the joy will return
to massage the rigid cold to warmth again
the sun to re-torch the heavens
the children first see the gray descend
the gapes and gaps
the lever of lies
that loose the flaps that confine the fear
they feel the slippage
the hole in the universe
the backward motion
as all things gentle are sucked in
gray has overcome the landscape
gray is in the houses
and the homes
gray is at the dining table
black awaits in the chamber
when no one sober roams these rooms
and no one safe
is that child
when wrong things burn
bitter as paregoric
the way jugged whiskey
johnny walker
burns the throat
burns that skin
like bare knee on rough rug
like pumice on raw flesh
and winter chills the heart
when laughter bows out
and lies bow in
like the poison in a lizard’s wattle
with denial of the promise
of violet and periwinkle
oranges blues reds
but now
gray
and black waiting at the fringe
with the talon’s piercing sting
and the startled bruise
that begins the tome
of that child’s life
disappearing like smoke up a chimney
that child’s smile stowed away
in keeping for the time of that moon
and that promise
when the periwinkle will return
• • •
rob kistner © 2010
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