A Window in Cleveland

There is a place that whispers,

hidden edges in the din,

Unseen by eyes focused tightly, squinting

on patterns bleak, oppressive, looming,

like bedframes shifting-shuddering to hold

the Rock Hall, the Stadium, the statues tall.

It is the place which I call home,

where the hyacinth and chicory

and robin-call rise up

to meet the lake-halo dawn,

Where the red hawthorn gleams

in ornamental glory

through heavy snows and pale, biting winter;

where the Earth does churn in emerald and white

and seeds of warmth are sewn

over the dill, the corn, the thyme.

In the earthworm’s grasp, the clay-thick soil

is softened, unobserved by those who tread

atop their tunnel-homes and pathways secret

as the fence-veiled corners

where we gather, fire-lit, in laughter,

in turgid verse, to lay our hands in crackling air

and carry woodsmoke in our cloth;

while the wooly-bear and finches,

in church-finest golden drapery,

watch silent from their swaying roosts,

bark cradled, leaves trembling,

on winds alight in simpler’s joy

and washed in bergamot.

Yet still from my window I do see

the Terminal Tower in her evening dress;

Obscured by fair greenery, skyward-reaching,

aloft in aged reverie

Of memoirs, the spirits of two centuries,

footprint sighs engraved as damask lace

to touch with barest breath

every cobbled stone, each street of brick,

And murmur in the bone-crack dust

of names, of faces,

faded as the moth lost in the willow reed,

“Memory eternal,

Eternal memory.”