Summer's Afternoon Dream

author's note:

If nothing else, New Orleans taught me two very basic, and complementary lessons: from decay comes life...

...what appears stagnant actually teems with activity.


SUMMER'S AFTERNOON DREAM

Shuttered fronts on a quiet street:
those ordinary houses
in a New Orleans unknown
to the tourist trade...

the cracked somnolent clapboards--
mundane, yet mysterious.

All around the block
oak roots break sidewalk
so dandelions can breathe.
Beneath the eaves
wet heat slowly smothers life
to a dark brown pulp

where leaves rest in their skeletal forms.

Sad obsequious stalks
hold happy white flowers.
Trees that droop with antipathy
give comforting shade.

The hose faucet leaks
like a ticking clock
as a three-legged dog
twitches in its sleep--

a summer dream deep...
opaque.

© 2011, Michael R. Patton
searching for the new mythology