Your words fall over me
Like acorns
Descending from
Increasingly barren
Oaks in
The sweet repose
Of another fall
their shells discarded
And lay around me
In concentric circles of forgetfulness
Only to be scrounged up
To the delight
Of foraging wild boars
With full bellies
And still insatiable appetites
I bear the fruit of your words
In the bosom of my soul
I hope you don’t want them back,
I giggle
I have so few of my own.
They may keep me company like an old dog
At my feet
Lounging carelessly but warmed
By holy fire
Against the hearth
Do you recognize
that fire burning in me?
Behind the veil of silence.
For I see that spark in you
Like the small but fierce fire
In the kitchen hearth
That warms the tea
That we may share.
Will you still burn
When the fire is extinguished?
When the faithful dog
Lifts his weary bones
Creaking and cracking
Like those dried twigs
From the mighty oak
Strewn in random pattern,
Discordant
Yet somehow still sweet,
And assured of purpose
Or no purpose
At all
Nor pattern
To be described
In purple prose
Of regret and redress
Just the dog’s scratches
At the old wooden door,
Made with calloused palms,
From sloughed
Oaken skin.
Over the threshold
The old boy Longs
To join the reverie
Of moonlight
Piercing the darkness
Of September sky.
by Dr. Robert Rowen-Herzog, January 2020