Contretemps*
There…by
the blending breeze, joining insect with bird,
hum
with chatter,
and
faint, lilting laughter from some liminal space,
toward
refuge from living’s storm, was I beckoned.
There,
a still path progressed through dark tunneling canopy, branched towers, bereft
of leaves save one.
There,
my hearing, as if pricked by some limb’s thinly-barked finger, did faintly
hear: “Re-member?”
There,
I did lay a greener hand upon that, now, remember place was limned a youth’s
initialed, heart-shaped joy...
There,
came a lively, verdant sylvan song: “stay, and...be as at...play!”
*from
the original French meaning, ‘motion out of time’