*Help yourself. The sap rises. The trees leaf out and bloom.*
James Schuyler, *Hymn to Life*
So many clouds flew over, it seemed home, viewed through the wrong end of the telescope, was hundreds of miles closer than we’d hoped, and we, a few of us being nearly grown, would not be easily squeezed into our rooms. Power outages, though, could get worked around.
We might be baptized in the living stream
after an interval, the preacher said.
Retreat toward the hills was optional,
but still desirable, while angels made
morning light so much lovelier in May,
or so we’d dream, not being learned then.
The younger we got, the more we outsourced
the necessaries to parents and friends.
I’m not saying it was easy, being us.
Snow-covered peaks hemmed in the lands we tramped,
with lists of rules keeping us on the run,
barely within the margins of the law.
And yet, cold were the streams we’d follow down
to well within a stone’s throw of the sea,
before we’d turn back, hearing the dinner gong,
missing our siblings and the scents of home.
Homes we had in abundance… gardens… parks.
Sleeping outside each of us had his star.
Each summer was a homecoming of sorts.
The bikes were bandied, while the skates were oiled.
Boys will be boys, peeing in woods and fields,
most parents thought, well ahead in “the game”
of “life,” as it was called back then, most bees
being busier, most birds still being in tune.
Often near home, and so tempted to run
more or less wild, we’d yell, kind of inflate
the mild air to the size of some great dream,
then scale it back, so as not to overdo,
as offshore, sea turtles swarmed. A new sun
shone on our efforts to find our way home.
*For Phoebe*
IV.5.2014