Our walk begins this evening like others this summer.
Overhead, squawks and caws wane as seagulls drift higher
into the twilight sky. And day bends itself around, coiling
for the night. The sun is exiting the scene; its vacuum
night quickly fills. The moon, awakening, lights the bay
with unsteady beams. Below, the land acquiesces while
the ocean slowly has its way.
But there is a shift in the air; one, the trees will have,
undoubtedly, tasted with their surreptitious tongues.
It is summer turning its back as it slides into hibernation
in the rivers, and creeks, and into the nostrils of this year’s
tired returnees, refugees, burnished like this dusk and
burdened with mortal sacks of life.
Are we, for this realm, a prism of sorts, a living focal point
through which their shadows and truths can be filtered,
or are we mere retinal resting places for the endless journey
of their colors of light and dark?
