potency

sounds

it's a summer night-
dragon flies checking in for a nightly shift
and song birds singing to their sleepy babies.
i'm listening to the shutter of the leaves
and trying to see a face in them.
some future child or lover
or my grandma at nineteen
or my own in fifty years time.
but it seems that tonight is tonight
and i have no glimpses into any time but that.
and so it's just leaves, dancing
in the color of a fallen sun.

the frog croaks on because no one told it to stop
and i wonder what i would sing
if i was never told my chords were too loud
or if i would even need to sing at all.

and this rattle to my left sounds as the
collision in my head, for, even in this high
hour, amongst this life, i'm still
a tangle of strings that can't be unknotted.
for the air is humid and pressing
and my heart as never been too carefree,
so i'm trying to hear (oh, that jackhammer
clang of metal) what's on the other side
of this for me. for some days i'm old,
some far too young, and i wonder
when the day will come where i
stop feeling too far here, too far there.
when tonight will just be tonight,
and tomorrow always on its toes
(but never more than that).

the wind has brought these chimes to life.
it's a calling from those dragonflies and toads
that nightly rains are raising, and
those not ready to brave it can
lay their heads to rest.
will it always be that i fall to my bedside,
or shall i stand out, in the eye of the storm,
and listen to its surge?
and just for tonight,
there is no tomorrow?