Petrichor

I walk without an errand for the mind.
I must be homeless.

Neighboring enclaves separate our spaces,
belie their builders’ mirthless exhaustion.
Not even necessity can be blamed  
for these mud-struck, brittle gourds,
these quick nests of vasculous organs
pulsing with their peculiar tyrannies,
briefly scuttling from their hovels
like sun refugees
darting into gleaming storefronts
waffled in concrete misery  
all to forestall the end of their souls.

Where can we go when we only want to breathe?
Sitting in a park bench,

trillion-visioned, crowned with galaxies,
I can rest my weary invention.
I sense the weight of an unseen player,
a secret stratagem
as she moves her piece into the glade.
I’m set in place, yet unopposed.
Uncombined with lovers, children,
the slow parade of trees and heat,
I lay beside these stalwarts,
at once, still and hurtling
throughout the travesty of time.

I assemble a cumulus intelligence
near the playground,

threatening Summer with three days rain.
I come down suddenly, in a comfortable gait,
filling the cracks and bellies in dirt,
extinguishing a battlefield of fire,
incense smoldering in the reeds.
Perdition slides off like pigment from the world,
voices beg the snakes from their slough
and purpose from its animation.
My spectre lives within its means,
cleansed and naked,
without distance to traverse,

the way the unkempt blue in the breeze
needs no walls or a place to be.