YOUNG LIGHT, FRESH SKY

 Because I’m with my son, my heart
purrs like a kitten among spirit-
drift and stowaway dreams falling into
an alphabet wider than the words
which attach themselves
to the tail of his kite.

Under the rich culture of clouds,
andantes wind around the soft-
pulling day. The kite
goes higher as if into the mirror
of marvels. The flower
of the universe, like his,
opens its ancient petals. 

Today we admire the shy light
which explores the dingle
between black mountains while
the wind chases down ghosts
who kiss our feet. Love, I see,
is intrusive. It intrudes upon
my darkness, that side sidling
into death. Birds perform

their mating calls on branches thin
as a tightrope. My son is schooled
in the open fluency of wonder
when he lets go the kite. The April
air  falls about us like
a woman’s skirt, cold
in the uppermost layers, but silky
underneath. I see the poem-
like reaches in my son’s body.

He nods his head yes as if he were
intent on where to go in a world
full of zippered buds that pop open,
a little dazed from so much travel. Always
like that. The traveling in a blurred daze.
A little knock upon young light,
fresh sky, then a softer knock
in coolest shade.

Copyright, Elizabeth Kirschner.
All rights reserved by author.