The Old Hideaway

Behind a curtain of hanging lichen,
the breeze sways the lattice of branches
in a living mosaic of gold and green.
From out their cover the sparrows fly,
over a dappled carpet of scarlet leaves,
the sun’s brute music touching them with fire.
The campfire stones still stand guard
around a circle of cracked shells.

Daffodil buds lift up their gilded blossoms,
peeking between tufts of lambswool grass.
As bees flock to the clover and the butterflies dance,
a beetle rests on the nettle leaf in bottle-green
and crushed acorns scatter the meadow,
trails to places that no longer exist and perhaps never did.

Sunlight runs along the back hills,
painting the field gold far as the eye can see.
A songbird trills its mournful tune,
while the wind bears fading echoes of laughter
from four little girls beneath an endless sky,
a reminder of what was and what might have been.

By Mira Jiang