Warning:

don't smile at love kid

that's not what it wants from you

laughing along to a tune of its own

full of freedom

and full of stones

or full of monsters and dreams and hopes

and things that break easily

---------

I don't mean anything at all. It's January and I am cold.

But Saturday dawned so warm. Ice melted in the vernal pool and my reflection fluttered in a breeze. Up the rocks looking down past my toes I watched the pool's surface spread like glass on the forest floor. Higher up at the old foundation I stopped.

Feet in the moss and dogs everywhere. My eye caught the horizon so easily through winter's bare trees and I turned all the way around, ringed by distant hills circling me, unbroken. Here amid old ground and short trees, moss covers the stones. The foundation outlines a space where someone made conversation and dinner and sleep. Nothing else around here is manmade, except the noise.

I hear planes and a distant chainsaw. I call the dogs and head home.