For E E Cummings

i have wandered the dusty back roads of my youth cut through cotton fields that screamed their brutal truth crossed the burning sticky blacktops in bare feet drank honeysuckle nectar-each drop hot and sweet the southern summer's cloying--relentlessly hot now i know these childhood days were my Camelot i knew every alley--shortcut--and hidden path i was myself then-in my hometown-in the past i have traveled the superhighways ten lanes wide lost myself in a city--miles from side to side i have wandered Alpine glens and climbed their peaks on borrowed time measured bitterly in mere weeks my children are reduced to--murmurs on the phone yes-i can tell you why most people die alone i guess i don't think i will live to get that old to have to wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled and now i notice the road's begun to narrow feel the trauma of my lifetime in my marrow i note the edges of my vision growing dim feel death's determined hold firmly from within i feel unfocused--my brain on auto-pilot my sleep is deep and dreamless and deathly quiet the trees enclose--the road's a tunnel--cool within the ancient Spanish moss absolves me of my sins once set upon this road there is no turning back with great apathy i acknowledge this as fact ©Danielle White