remembering Frederick Manfred
I might have watched and listened
at another cottonwood
but I listened and watched at
the one
......................at the cottonwood
of all as wind went up and
into its dried leafage and
made a movement and a sound
in it
......................another leaf would
come in time where each leaf now
prepared to go but not quite
and would crackle in not the
same wind
......................and not the same way
and what I watched and listened
to would never be again
nor would this cottonwood or
other
......................a big kid grew up
in the farmland around here
who had the heart and the words
but made him an aerie on
this rock
......................the red blue of it
not a hutch among the fields
so he was the man of all
during its only time when
he and the rock were fading
