Ode to Happiness

                    

At dusk

a round wooden table

two empty chairs three

six empty chairs

four

alone leant back watching clouds

being fleeced    shapes against a light blue sky

of ever changing hues

                                    against a tropical sky

shaded by shrubs like Merwin’s garden

where he meditates

on infinity

where privacy rules

behind a thicket hiding a wooden fence

a clearing in a mist of mythic making

where makers of metaphor make magic

another robin singing at twilight

his best song kept for dawn as sunlight fades

in love again waking

when a first bird sings before dawn

feeling young again   supple

after many years of sloth

looking for clarity in fading light

while dark shapes move in the mist

Dick Russell

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