The Little People
If I stand on
tippy-toe
and turn ever so
lightly
a space will open in
the air
the smell of it
drifts past my nose.
Sometimes when I turn
like that
it is a rose garden
all green
and pinkish, heavy
with beese.
I know little people
live in the creek
I know the
perspective of looking up
through the
underbrush as if it were jungle
the branches grow
together overhead.
Sometimes the sun
never peeks through
but there is always
leaf on leaf
green on green—bright
green jewels
lit from within—the
green suns of our world.
At night in the pale
moonlight
we play and play like
we do all day
and all over, the
blackness is touched
with a soft yellow of
the fairy Queen’s nightgown
that she has thrown
off playfully
and it floats down
all around the world
the grass glistens
moonlight on the dew.
The only thing we
miss is the people-music
their instruments
that sing like us
their baking sends
smells down to us
we grow mischievous
then and plan
ways to sneak through
kitchen windows
at night we raid
their refrigerators
as if we were their
teenagers
who get a notion at midnight
they are a lot like
us.
If only the people
still remembered us
and left their food
out on doorsteps
playing their music
for us
sometimes joining in
a dance
(that’s okay—we’ll do
the singing).
I remember when the
creek grows dark
under the cool
branches and the leaves
are lit up and
jewel-like,
the music is just out
of ear-shot,
then my eyes can’t
leave the clearness of the water.
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