Yappy Hour

"The Children's Hour," Franklin D. called it, putting his stamp on that ceremony, and, so, we come together, bird, and beast: a yappy little Bichon Frise in the parking lot, who believes he's a Rotweiler. And, then there's the poet, that strange species you are advised to avoid lest what's worse, get written up in verse. It's five p.m., and the great-winged birds (read Turkey Buzzards) are circling over the lake as if they know it's time for drowning sins. I've been absolved of mine, the priest was kind, still, residual remorse remains for those washed- out black buzzard-stains, whose namesakes leave no signs of circling, no trace in the sky, unlike the plane shot like a ball from a cannon that is climbing straight up over the snowy rope beneath it. Then, out of the blue, another -- the two aerial acrobats forming a giant X like the cross that St. Andrew hung on, but it's an epiphany, not a crucifixion we celebrate as we clink our glasses,wondering, where go these hardy climbers, these sky divers? To what destination, what new creation from their ropes of light? Where they go, I do not know. Where, in the offing, trails dissolving, never the twain shall meet... I, Thee greet,