Childhood Scenery


He saw the phrasing in the oval mouth, bottom
of the jaw dropping, the lines of his mother's 
face and pressed colors of autumn -
				    the leaves
in the dirt crushed as piles scatter around trees
he turns beside them -
			hears her call inside,
maybe for the first time knowing a day
has breath short enough to measure -
				     gauge
a jump against the sky, hold for a brief time
the vault, before falling to the root-thrusts
at trunk bottom, climbing into the earth
like an egg, sucking snake-paw -
				 so under
the pile, clinging to soil dark enough to hold
the flash and burn of childhood scenery -
					  hard
set against himself, with a dreamhead 
   of youth where we halt in mid-air, taking one
               last dive before a heavy lidded sun.

josh buermann © 1998