Yes, rather a cliché s title and picture during this cicada swarm summer, but there seems little more relevant image at this moment of din outside my door.

Had I a life beyond my own,

Alternate senses, fancies grown,

I’d glimpse green leaves ‘gainst bright blue sky,

Ride wind blown twigs,

Tread currents high.

Had I daft dreams beyond cave nights,

Winsome hopes, un-sown heights,

I’d shed this skin too small to hold

Wild dreams, vast visions – rare and bold.

Had I a chance to draft new mark,

Undo dark years of burrow stark

I’d trade those years of darkened maze,

For these few brief and frenzied days.

Surface, visible – vibrant life

Moss, dwarf iris and more.

Underneath, hidden – rock’s veiled essence.

Inner strength or sterile core?

We plead for substance,

We weep at barrenness,

One chooses.

I disregarded Eleanor,

She much regarded me,

Amidst the trope of our desire,

Discontinuity.

I dazzled her; she frazzled me,

We danced a rumba sheen.

But never found that comfort place

To right our wrongs between.

Too late, I flew a flag of truce,

Surrender in my eyes,

To find she’d fled our pied-à-terre

Defeated by our lies.

Image adapted courtesy Ailura, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/at/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons

Tree ear listens, subtlety hears,

Furtive rustles — false dawn nears.

Rat snake’s slither,

Screech owl’s feather,

Prey-fraught field mouse fears.

Midst the silence spacing these,

Arboreal battle rare eye sees.

Push for sun and water feints,

War that no surrender taints

With efforts to appease.

Carpet moss down tree ear creeps,

Bryophyta stealthy keeps

Intentions cloaked by time and space,

Victory march at glacial pace,

Tree ear listens , nothing— sleeps.

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