BY THE ROADSIDE

 

Beside me, Summer white daisies bristle

as playful cattails paw softly at the wind

filled with rainbows of dragonflies

hovering the moist ditches

grooved along a roadside.

 

Above me, tiny orange butterflies

kite slowly, limping lazily,

seesawing into a rolling breeze.

While ebony beetles,

their windsails scissored shut,

gracelessly skitter across

the road-grey gravel dust.

 

Blue bottle-flies collide

in orbit above my swollen belly.

Hungry worms burrow beneath my sleeping flesh.

Wild flowers eat the same soil which devours me

and, in their numbers, carry my words

to other dead children's mouths

...whispering through the wind:

 

"Hush, little brother,

forget those shadows which weep

and call out your name

from the sad other side

of the looking-glass."

 

"Hush, little sister,

now you are starlight;

forget that once you were

just a brittle snowflake

dancing on the sun."

 

"Hush, child,

remember those stars,

so dear to us,

they've closed their eyes

at the end of night,

but soon they'll open

in another velvet sky."

 

Be at peace,

my friend,

and remember:

Beyond our world,

Beyond our dreams,

Nothing dies.

 

 

~ Bud Evans (c) 2000 ~ (aka "Rainfish")

 

--- I wrote this poem shortly after the death of a childhood friend of mine. It was published a few weeks later. ----