I still have bits of earth
that should be of no use to me.
In my bedroom cubby corner
papered with a knife’s edge of dust
lay mud-caked rubber
and laces cracked like peppercorn:
a pair, to be precise.
Tonight, bolts of thickly-stitched fabric
woven from tendriling time
and trails gone by
ribbon out in earthy billows
from the soles.
They envelop my
face, neck, rhythmic
beating chest;
immobile as I am
in the throes
of a dreamy darkness.
Reaching out with a longing hand,
these ribbons,
of nights under starry canvasses
and days under swaying canopies,
still flit away,
goading a sly hide-and-seek;
like elaborate wisps of pastry
curling around my bed springs
and beneath the warm O’s
of my breath.
I sigh, jolt.
Reams of well-trod nostalgia
dissipate into pre-dawn’s haze,
and the bits of earth scatter.
But they will return,
soon enough.
For just as past
connects present
connects future,
the patient boots dirt-webbed
by wilderness calls of old
await only their next lacing,
and trek towards the unknown.
Jake Marble 