Legs like barnacles
swing wide over the heady stone wall
to await the coming storm —
such joy in a white stucco world
of butterflies and garden gnomes
and fistfuls of choices for breakfast!
Trees like these ones can sing
and they line the pavement, burying roots
and wooden tissues deep under the granite.
The frogs, of course, know
the fate of the earth. With windy croaks
they claw out tunnels and energy, windswept
to sit along the stone wall and await the storm.
Glass-textured shivers fall
upon the clay tiling and
dirtily drain the dust from the swept hillsides.
Oh, my dearest Children,
the threshold of the storm
has slid beneath your muddy soles!
