Flickering Candlelight

A canyon echoes with harmonics
and overtones as a gong
tolls on drifting autumn leaves
from the pagoda, shrouded in fog's web-like
fingers; irises open to vibrations
and cast a fragrantly seductive spell
upon each dew droplet that trickles.

Doves' wings fluttered against the not-quite-still
breeze; the glitter in nights' reveries receded
behind purple mountain stairways under the fading
indigo canopy. Sleeveless, the doves wore
their hearts on their beaks, coo-coo-cooing
a song that stretched and yawned
through olive branched tongues.

Like children laughing at kittens
tugging at a yarn ball,
the day's seasons
etch across the sundial's face,
even as the year's hours
inch constellations across the heavens -
moment after memory after wish after dream.

The spider embraced its web,
escaping honeysuckle's aroma
flavored, never-puckering lips
with first hissed seductive silence.

Pregnant presence tingles,
shivering up daybreak's spine,
drenching the day with pomegranate
juice; fingered acupuncture needles'
pricks form tiny ripples, glass skating,
languidly bobbing a way
beyond the imaginary horizon.

Conversations caressed cheeks
with a newborn's breath,
expectantly hovering
over its mother's nipple,
while offering succulent sighs, content
in quiet, moonlit harbors
where grunion ran upon red tide.

Lacking the proper mushrooms,
I recited Ferlinghetti
between the looming shadows cast by
flickering candlelight. Her Plato
suffered the interruption.

A dove family chirps and peeps from a nest
in a tree outside my window, singing
reminders: gathering daisies and snapdragons
to place on her yellow Austin America's windshield
all during 1971's spring. As if there could be
any other.

Memories creep into light
from behind the foggy haze
residing at eyelid corners,
illuminated within a corridor -
similarly cast looming
shadows, dancing and singing between
echoed reverberations' call and answer -
resound in flickering candlelight.