Another Circuit Around Wilgrove Park

Charlotte, NC

Frost on the golf course,
The Southern pines sway to some mystery,
The other trees have sucked away their juice
To the Earth's molten core, and there is no
Threat any more, only light, here, in late December,
A few birds jostling damp leaves—
I held the resonance as long as I could,
The hope of life past the trees
That ache their beautiful bones in rank profusion
Far beyond what my eye could hold;
They just don't connect with each other
As they keep us in their net of spindles
And their grey stripes.
Romanian fairy tales and Appalachian reels
Echo these cathedrals that only now, in late December
Let the sun turn the mosses gold.

The world is as I left it, wonderously changing,
Offering me no greeting, as it always did,
Just the dance of Christian blue and Satan shadows—
The people here become holy
Making nests out of what can only be found near the ground
But that was never for me—the ruddy blush of spades
Opened my way, as the spirits of the forests stared.
The place is a shelter for so many, from the muds
Of open fields that stretch so far and pull one in.

I could not stay—
I had to leave my boots behind, in this paradise of sorts,
And scamper—red dew left on cotton socks.