Chautauqua | Stephen Mead
Remember a Savannah in past grass stains fabric-embedded
with a thunderhead rumbling from such knowledge homegrown.
Early on roots do not realize how deep they will plunge.
From this jungle gym, these tree tops, children of Peter Pan dangle…
Rover, Red Rover, come put on your play clothes.
The rain is our ally.
Do you remember bike trips to the Amazon through mud puddle ruts?
Twigs poking pebbles were gateways.
Bang. Bang. Count to ten.
Now toys in the attic hide what we seek,
a mystical passage of letters, costumes found buried in boxes.
The Sabbath grows shorter. A work whistle blows.
Waning, these days dream of picking blueberries in August.
From black cellars, wax-lidded jam jars gleam with beginnings.
To return there is to struggle with wisdom’s Braille, a face-reader,
our fingers, blind but for the insights
of a dying planet still managing
to send out a last shoot.
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