68. RED ROVER, RED ROVER

RED ROVER RED ROVER
I've always been infatuated with the intense juices of
the times I pass through - how the icicles hang like
a melted glass over eaves and windows; bitter cold
after mid-winter thaws seem to stretch the water as
it ices harshly into strange and elongated shapes.
Glinting like a dangling earring, something like that
catches my mind. In the same way, water beading on trees
after even a Summer rain, by contrast, entices with the
same effect of warmth as does the wintry ice just mentioned.
In some respect, all things are the same. Even movement,
if broken into enough increments, is a stillness at rest with itself.
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But, we can't just be satisfied with maudlin adventure.
It has to be more than that. The cat, slinking about like
a bendable pointer, tries to catch the corner even before
it turns itself inside out in getting to where it wants.

The dog finds barking at the moon a useless endeavor

and stops what it is doing to curl up again and fall asleep.