A Fall Dream
By Ned S., Milton, MA
Late one night loosely hanging in the foggy end of October
I slipped into a Saturday dream with sunflower seeds:
My mind spat flashes like hot shotgun pellets
As I sank slowly away from the nightflower's blackness.
The dark of night melted to puddles, yet I was still in my room.
The green leaves rustled dryly, in a concert for my windowframe.
The rubber wall scene was interrupted by a rattle at the window.
No one there, but a pine cone; rudely blundering in its fall
From the world of the tree to the flat of the land below.
Deep inside, the boil of my anger was cooled by the ice of fear
To deep contemplation, reddening and growing in new light
I jumped through the window following the dry of the cone
From my crazy, enclosed world to the flat of the land below.
I stood beneath the tree shocked and mocked by the height.
I didn't even look at the window I wouldn't have seen if I did.
I bent, and aimed my cone up high, the boughs flat and distant.
Past my ear I snapped it, hurled it highly back to whence it came
Quite expecting the arrogant old tree to take back his errant.
For an hour's space I sent the cones to regain the tree,
Watching those seed-sowers sail through the branches, and return.
Each one came back, rejected, cast from the height to Earth.
Now finally my anger came, not for the cone, but for the tree.
But round globs of blackness came down with the cones now.
They splashed and robbed this midnight day of its light
No! Tree, why couldn't you take back but one single cone?
Before darkness heightened the tree, my ethereal dream ended,
And original night landed me back in my room.
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