The neighborhood children traveled in flocks, rising and settling, first here, then there, your house then mine, always in play. First out with the dawn then into dusk we flew, flashlight tag around the houses, red-light green-light under the lamppost till Father’s calls drew us home.
We loved the twilight and the dark, the stars to see and shadows to wonder at, it was ours.

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Morning

A rising sun walking down
the tallest tree crown to root
fall colors emerging in bloom

A breeze shakes the leaves
loose cascading to the ground
in whirls and tumbles

A sudden gust sends them
skittering across the path
children set free to play

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The Whisper

An Autumn haze held the afternoon
colors warm the soft patter of leaf fall
filled the air like rain on a summer roof

Across the field three horses, chestnut
bay and black with mane and tail aglow
in the falling sun stand in close array

My old dog takes this in stopping here
on our walk as the sun begins to set
a horse leans close to whisper in her ear

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Night Vision

I was walking in moonlight
floating it seemed as the road
beneath lost its firmness to
a mosaic of dark and light
moon shadow and white

Tall trees towered above me their
shadows criss-crossing the path
I was between walls of a steep
canyon the cool air flowing down
with the sweet scent of autumn leaf

Carefully moving from white to white
as if above the sky and stepping
joyfully and softly cloud to cloud

Soon the waning moon and stars
will hand their light to the day

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As children we knew the mysteries of moonlight and the night, fear to be learned later. We embraced the world, all of it, in wonder and delight, in whispers we spoke.

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