by Jinx&Jedi
~ i ~
The sun sets over the still glass rippling
against the wood at my feet.
A loon calls
A catspaw of wind over petals and reed.
The stars rise. The moon kisses the water with the last deep light.
The sounds of a calm summer night whisper
through the pine, oak and maple.
Fireflies.
Hundreds even thousands of them,
dance around adding their tiny lights
to the still glass copy of the sky above.
An owl calls on silent wings,
and a bat answers on velvet wings.
I look down at the still glass
and where my feet hang
Cool steel and pale concrete do not belong
yet here they are.
Wood to wood and from wood to rock
and rock to steel.
A tube of steel, with cut polished glass
pointed at the sky, the moon, stars
with the still glass below.
~ ii ~
Soft footsteps on bed of dirt and dead leaf,
scuffing over roots that had risen to stare at the
sky.
Small, reverent voices whispering as they emerge from the cathedral
of trees.
Small eyes staring at the still glass with
closed petal and reed that seem
to float in a sea of starlight.
Small hands and small feet walk down a
dirt staircase to the still glass rippling at the
shore.
They come to know in the ways
only young things want to know.
~ iii ~
Those small eyes and voices
in their eternal, innocent wisdom.
They do not need to be told the legends
of the bright points above their heads.
They know.
I point to a star and say it's name,
and they look in awe,
and want to know more.
Small eyes gaze at the moon
through the tube of steel and polished glass
And then look at me in excitement
before older hands usher them to bed.
With dreams of the stars, and the fireflies
still whispering legends.
You could see it in their eyes.
More little eyes, hands, feet come.
and it's the same.
Finally,
Alone I stand once more,
on the wood, rock, and steel
above the still glass rippling below.
had I really given them that much?
I only showed them the stars.
I look up.
No. There was something more.