Metapoiesis

I used to write about rain:
the clean smell of it hitting
the redwoods, its regular
visitations, being abducted
by the memory of petrichor.

I used to versify dust,
the birth and transpacific
travel of sand and pollen,
borne by eddies and
currents and chains of gusts.

Much like a child, I saw
not the darkness these
things were cloaking, but
the purest sounds as they
rang true, showing

my age like a profound
lack of rings and the quivering
of green leaves in the
clutch of a late spring. I used
to whisper these downy

cat-paw propulsions with
fine, whiskerlike brushes that
dabbed and swished their
way through cool autumn
air and wide-open skies. I

gave them form and let
them hover without the
relentless gravity of gloom
and pollution. I used my
word to paint, not reanimate.

But now — I don’t know.
Does my lake have a new
depth — a darkly shimmering
reverberation to shake
the redwoods? Do my monsters

truly live within the cracks
and lightlorn hollows of ageless
words? I think they used to,
back when they were trapped
between clean rain and murmurless sky.