Honey Time

The sun was so much younger then
the waking dawn would yawn out
blues and golds that ran so long
together one day they might marry.

Gravity could not hold me down
the way it does today. I found
my feet in glider shoes, in flight
fast as my forgetfulness of facts.

Teachers bound to get me sure
I was no good, despite applause
from every class at my retorts,
offhand remarks, mutterances.

And you there positioned soft
right where I'd ricochet in hard
cracks and smacks upon walls
and desks, football players' fists.

In love with so much, even sadness
in the artist kids, the jumbled crush
of recess blitz, teen eyes of alien
planet satellite disks, I missed

separating you from all of this.
It took me 40 years to see you
standing there, ready to repair
my wrecked chrome wheels,

or slow my piranha flock rush
to eat this life in final meals...
how healing gets concealed
in cotton balls, quiet prayer,

but I hear now how you offered
those to save the frantic boy
from the burden of all that
dreaming, and keep him safe

till he grew the sheer muscle mass
of buildings tall enough to hold
the antenna he'd soon construct
to beacon out unmoneyed truth.

I'm sure you had to learn to judge
and blame to make your way
through all the scheming crowds,
and no one can still believe in me

the way you did back then, but
know I hold you now in honey time,
weep in joy and gratitude to recall
your telling me, "We're fine. Fine."