smoke in the breeze

sometimes all that's left

are the pieces and the place

the story is just smoke in the breeze

a faint scent of something burnt

the sound of roosters

a breeze sobbing in the pines

and faintly, so you'd barely notice it,

what's missing:

a chorus of frogs in spring,

the crickets of june,

when the night smells of wild rye

and ditch water

anthems of dawn

without the flags and rockets

what harmony is this?

what geometry expressed in the spiral

of a snail's shell, the way that thorns

climb up the stem of a rose?

the familiar proportion

of shoulder to waist to ankle

i'd like to sing duets with mockingbirds

they could do the car alarm,

i could do the lawn mower

or perhaps to bask with the iquanas

on the hot black shores of the galapagos

then close my eyes and drift away to

to a honeysuckled arbor in some other

wild sunny place 

or i could just go bark at the clouds,

and chase diamonds

down the drain trap under the sink