A Time Between Four Walls

Words born today from mouth and skin,

From joyful eyes on whispered winds,

From we, from two, between four walls,

Will not be there in Fall.

Though hums and lulls, sweet gutturals,

And things I dream are structural,

Though genius sprites of truth and awe

With gentle forces call.

But in this room that came with tea,

With kettle, crickets, dusk and leaves,

Now hidden friends in corners seek

One swaddled fairy baby.

And fog that only to-night breathes,

To-night frees and to us gives,

When baby eyes stretch open, then

Family resemblance bleeds. 

And swoosh the boomerang fairies Fall,

And blinking dreams and kisses all,

And what I know of you and me,

And what lived now and then when we

Drank in our youngest truest loves,

The world was jewels and we their drops

Of sun and moon and light and dark

When both were joined with grey, their art.

But until then, this kettle's steam,

This red wood stove you built with me,

These leaves that bang on crystal dreams,

Whose roots drink up the moonlit weeds,

That grow from watered words born now,

Between four walls of skin and mouths,

Protect us in this snapshot cave,

Their wilderness our cradle made,

Let older minds that scared us well,

With definition carousels,

Their small distinctions still belie

Their beaten child with squinting eyes.

No dusty corners, dry and burnt,

To wake Our infant from the earth.

Don't wake us with our timeless calls.

But blink, once more, between four walls.