august triptych

poems at summer's edge

august triptych

I.

Freedom is the fence gone slack,
but the horses do not run.
They stand in their own shadows,
tails switching at summer flies,
choosing, for now,
to stay.

II.

Seventeen years underground,
the cicadas rise.
Six weeks to sing
themselves to death,
a choir of urgency
that makes me think
of all I've buried,
waiting for light
that may never break.

III.

The fireflies
know what I forgot:

brief
can be
enough,

even the darkness
learns to hold light.