Spring Wakes the Cottonwoods

it is later in the day

as light again finds

the obligation to drift

sunflowers pose shadows

halfcocked through the window

painting the corners of the room

bowing into broad daylight

a memory of the girl on the mantle

the one you had guarded in youth

knowing you would never join her

her mind was hotwired with

the resonance of silence

maps and the tolls taken

but somehow she always knew

what you would look like

as an old man