What Did The Child

when sky and silhouettes bring up memories
when memories muddle in loopy spirals, enter daydreams
reviewed so many times they lose shape and substance
all that remains is the moment

what did the child think when winter skies
first presented, first enveloped mornings of gray light
and the rattle of dried oak leaves on a tree made a
solid impression?

I’ve brought them into focus so often, the images are frozen,
colder than any winter morning,
solid as brown, leaf-shaped sheets of lead

what did the child think when dew covered a lawn
and dozens of spider webs glittered in angled light?
what did the child think when wind and heat
eroded and smoothed a low wall of snow chunks?

what did the child think as flames ate trash and paper
in an upended cement pipe, while he fed twigs into the fire
just to wonder at that power, the unnamed
transience of all matter, of all that made sense?

[RK, 6/6/21]