The winter tree
Reveals the winter sky
Venus, our sister
Hangs in the black sky
Pin point
In the night sky
Glowing
Through bare branches
While the moon
Penetrates
The sky hides
Shy
Behind the umbrage
Most days
Until breath billows
And the frost
Licks at the corners
Of skylights
Snip, snip
Went the shears
As he bent over each blade
That dared to stretch
Across concrete footpaths
Meticulous
Focused
Flexible
He was a constant
In the Fall
The great cattle roundup
Beef replaced
By golden red foliole
Lovingly collected
In giant black plastic cans
Placed strategically
Across the lawn
And under the dog day sun
Sailing
From the edge of his world
And back again
He would leave a wake
Of congruent uniformity
The green carpet
That welcomed all
Among the Victorian, Moorish
And Hollywood Bungalows
The red brick Georgian
Was a prize
But in his yard
The nod to four kings
Took second stage
Huddled closely for warmth
Hill’s Angels assembled
Every year
Roger’s entire world
Keeping watch through the season
With names like Devin, Kyle and Abigail
They stood merrily
Silent carols
Seeming to hang in the breezes
While backdropped
By festive colors
That wrapped themselves
Around the manor
But one year
The brilliance
Running the length of the eaves
Was absent
And the Angels
No longer emassed
With Faces frozen
In festive chorus
Now
Replaced by dark windows
Loneliness
When spring arrived
The blades
Found new freedom
As they crept
Over curbs and cobblestones
His world was crumbling
The slow rearranging
Undoing
Of the space
That exists between
One second and the next
The linear narrative
That fast tracks us all
Into the otherworld
Had captured him
Under the canopy of falling leaves
He existed
Building families of angels
Cutting blades of grass
And hand laying red bricks
For only a few brief seasons
Creating this sanctuary
Now from a car
Emerging with assistance
Slowly
Tennis balls dulled the click
Of his disability
Placing
Deliberate, pensive steps
Leading to the entrance
Of his world
The man who was king
Now a bag of ruins
When Power Consumes, Poetry Cleanses... 