Drive by the waste
Of a thousand transients
In the condemned parking lots
Of closed businesses everywhere.
Now weeds cluster them all.
It was a storm’s defilement
Of the nearby marsh
We could no longer cross
That brought us to sudden stopping.
Our thoughts cut by wind slicing
Rain’s impenetrable drapery
Darkening unseen eyes of woodland birds
Huddled – as motionless shapes – within
Lightning-struck recesses of trees.
Beyond the meadow to gray morning
The transient shapes linger as
Remnants of our abandoned conscience,
The way time stops memory sometimes.
I’ll have another smoke anyway
& forget what I see, driving
As far as possible from
A once bright venue of leaves
Bathed in pale shadow
By the distant sun’s
Cloud-parting
Exposure
