6.16.2024

Once again, another Summer holds up 
its mirror and the reflection sees itself 
and says,

“I am bruised, but not broken.

See where time has folded, creased, and 
torn apart years to paste them on a face 
colored by the sun of so many summers, 
blasted by wild winter winds, licked 
clean by spring rains, lit by the soft 
shadows of a harvest moon."

This face no longer lives among empty 
hearts waiting to be filled with a sweeter 
liquor, nor does it live with closed minds
once thought forever sealed:

Now it splits and opens to every destiny 
that travels like a wayfarer seeking 
comfort for just a night, then disappears 
as the thin mist of morning falls over it."