Everything is changed inside time as we know it:

days–pliant as warm taffy, blinding as a marigold sun;

evenings–hummingbirds fleeing a romance of blooms;

and night–a deep navy sea that abandons illusions.

****

Children play on sidewalks, sweat-speckled, wide-eyed,

making hope a rhyme, their feet tapping out fun.

But a cat cries from dawn to dusk, a beauty left behind,

another creature lost–or perhaps it only feels this way.

No matter, its crying sits inside me.

****

Trees waver under the weight of a blue sky–

holding us in or out?–that tries

to surprise those who dare to look up.

Many glance up and away; many look, see nothing.

Our lives avoid or snag each other, press against themselves.

But time is patient, can be shaped/reshaped.

We bargain, bridge gaps, sing out wishes,

plant tomatoes, are puzzled by aphids and ants.

****

Shadows slip over fences and passersby like

phantoms that are lonely, seizing an escape.

Cougars, deer and bears grow restless, confused

as they crisscross emptied roads,

take over porches, lie down in the dark.

****

An eyeless moon and bold-faced stars

helm the heavens while inviolate

angels salvage wishes and prayers,

roam a time of limbo on a spinning earth

with its data and its imaginings

flying like victorious tails of ascendant kites,

or like flags of surrender

depending on how this time reveals it.

****

I break the spell of time,

grab hold of kites,

take to the world a little again.

(Photos by Cynthia Guenther Richardson 2020)