The boys I watch are truly boys
Shirtless
Shoeless
Over stone beaded driveways
And August scorched grass ways
Running
Tangling up the willow tree branches
Linking up fists
Kicking up dust
With black bottomed feet.

Thirty four shades of summer have passed me
Always at odds with the seasonal shift
Watching the boys I feel so archaic
Presence of mind has replaced the gift
of scurry and scramble without an intention
without the worry of getting things done
But I have done nothing to balance this greatness
in my thirty four years of snowfall and sun.

Feeling the panic brought on by September
Sensing the newness the air of death brings
It seems even now the memory aches me
Concerns of a lunch box and a desk for my things
Beyond this I moved
importance accomplished
Yet I scurry and scramble as if running wild
Having done nothing to balance this greatness
or surpass the glory of being a child.

The boys have gone savage in the trees
Capturing twilight in dawn tinted lungs
Shrieking
Shouting
Frantic for daylight
As if eating the dusk might make them become
Something
Less than human
Before
Voices call from behind rusty screen doors
And beckon
Come in from the night.

(c)copyrightveryscarycarnival2000