Watermelon rind forgotten
in the grass for the ants.
Streetlights come on
and shadows move behind shaded windows.
Music from a car window
far away and going somewhere.
Spring is promise, but summer’s fullness
holds the seeds of its own dissolution.
Like dandelions that have turned
to ghosts and will soon fly away.
Like the drop hanging from the spigot, swelling
and just waiting to shatter.
It’s a strange lightness when the weight is gone.
Like standing in a doorway, pressing the backs
of your hands to the doorjamb, then stepping out.
Your hands float free, unbidden. Like mine now,
saying, where shall I go, what shall I do,
now I am no longer writing to guide your writing hand?
It’s a queer emptiness when classes end.
Full of space, like a mouth
when the braces come out, and the tongue
explores the new expanse. Demosthenes
with the pebbles gone. Wondering, what words
will come to fill me now?
It’s a curious blankness now. The days,
no longer sliced in two-hour tranches,
seem borderless. Outlook Calendar
begins to show white rectangles. Tabs vanish
from the laptop. D2L sites close.
Emails thin. Sometimes even the announcement:
You have no events scheduled
for the rest of the day.
It’s the moment of sudden falling
at the beginning of sleep. It’s the cartoon Coyote
running in air before he sees
there’s no more cliff. It’s what Sartre said,
the fear of freedom. Mary Oliver asking,
what will you do with your one wild
and precious summer?
Poemspring 