Parameters

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The gift of all this crumbles

with a single out-of-sync happening.

Geraniums are frosting over

and the high grass is yellowing.

Yesterday was a cat in symmetrical slumber,

pictures stood straight and warmth

was gathering like a sweet wind over the neighbourhood.

Does this mean it is my mind? like an insect living

one season, sees only that season, dies before winter,

content to have made it so long?

Does this mean the puddle

I jump in, wade in, determine in

is only a pail of water, nothing beside the ocean?

When the puddle is stirred from its stillness or

becomes a bath for snakes or dries up from too much sun –

it is still the puddle and will replenish again

as all puddles do in the rain, maybe

in the early evening just before the lion comes

to take a long, relaxed drink.

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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst

 amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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 First published in “Literary Orphans”, Issue 13, May 2014

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