My Fan

I am in love with my fan

these hot, humid days of summer.

I refer not to the human kind

that stand on street below

eyes raised towards my window

bothering me by flash and noise.

No, a box shape electrical in motion

sits on my window sill

swirling air to coolness in the

darkness fallen oppressed by the heat of day.

Its steady noise hides all,

protects me from the madness of sounds:

the cars that roar up the street

always it seems in a hurry,

hides the conversations broadcasting

beyond the intimacy of porches

bouncing yard boundaries

into windows gaping with the heat,

muffles the drunks sent home

by closing signs on bars

their drunken soliloquy kept

far from my silent slumbers.

The bliss of white noise and wind

blowing from my electric watchman

the outside world cannot intrude

on my poor thoughts

relishing the morning coolness

I lie curled within its safety

giving me sweet pause

in readiness to face the dawn.

To a Youth

I cannot follow you down

through that winding path you choose

in tangles of forest undergrowth

I fear the evil presence

who lives somewhere nearby

above those sharp rocks

underneath the perilous

overhang of cliffs.

I wandered there many

years ago from now

the deadly one caught me unawares,

my heart was torn

left bleeding in the dawn

before a sunless sky.

I cannot follow you down

my steps will not leave

the sureness of the chosen path

leading ever upwards

into the shining light of day

I reach back into the shadows

with hope for that day

you send your gaze upwards

through all those leaves of grass

and see into that sky

we were born to call our home.