A Moist Imprint
Missed Connections in Brooklyn
A Moist Imprint
I laid on my back looking at the sky that afternoon
imagining trees when their leaves were still green
and an elephants trunk investigating
the still air
all the wild places i never got to visit are now
just a bunch of insta-matic photographs
that float in my mind
the elephants and lions were first, the horses and dogs last
setting across the barren landscape like an ancient glacier
with a million stories and a thousand legs
there was no poetry that night because all the wordsmiths left long ago
to soak in the memories of tomorrow and prepare for yesterday
and when all has been said as they climbed into bed
they asked not what kind but rather, how kind
was our kind
we were the only animals left now
all the rest just a memory
a moist imprint
NOTE FROM THE MISSED CONNECTIONS CHIEF BOTTLE FINDER:
Have you ever sat on a deserted beach or the middle of a forest and imagined what that very place was like long before human development was running rampant? Sure, there are some preserved, natural spaces left but most of us live in places where buildings, street lights, and honking horns are just seconds away. Perhaps our poetic Brooklynite was lying underneath the skies in Prospect Park wondering the same thing…
When I was young I would go off into the woods just to be alone. I would wonder around for a wile looking for the most perfect spot to rest. A spot that the light was shing through the trees in a way that made the space glow and magical. A place where the ground was soft and friendly. Then I would sit and close my eyes. I could hear the wind caressing the leaves it the trees that stood tall above me. The wind was timeless but had many memories. All of the sound of the forest came alive. I could image myself no more and could hear my ancestors calling me back to a time when people didn’t exist. I had become the wind ,was timeless and blowing free.