85. LIFE NONETHELESS

LIFE NONETHELESS
On this first measured evening of
an oncoming Winter, with the full moon
hung low in the sky, the leaves have all fallen
and the trees are all barren and there is
nothing to see but broad sky - a barren greyness,
but one worth every penny.
-
Seasons, like words, are measured out one by one.
We take what we see - what we are given - and we add,
ourselves, the coloration and tenor we wish.
Bare, barren, denuded trees still whisk in the
winds as they pass through the branches.
That skeletal bareness belies the barren - no matter
that everything is still filled with life :
dormant, slow to move, lazy even, but life nonetheless.
-
What charmers these little things are...
over there, the squirrel with one eye.
At the farther corner, that old green statue
in the square, John Witherspoon himself, in fact;
brazen and strong, high atop his concrete pedestal.
It apparently little matters to him now the where
and when of this time and this place.
At some point everything comes together as one.
Beyond time, and beyond memory too.
(Life nonetheless, it's been said).