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Coming Back


Thoughts keep coming back
of late afternoons
with the dark wings
of currawongs weaving
pathways through the high 
branches leaving long threads 
of song draped across trees -
the drifting skeins
of woodsmoke from winter fires
burning in cozy rooms,
eyes fixed in hypnotic stares 
on dancing flames and minds 
meandering the past, some
about to fall asleep.

Thoughts keep coming back
of snow falling silently 
in feathery flakes
outside the window
and in the distance, an owl's 
plaintive call going unanswered
in the thick air.
I listen to the sound of the fire,
a ticking wall clock,
breathings from beneath
a folded quiet and the drip
of melt water from somewhere
in the dark. I would like to stay
here but the fire is dying out
and its glowing embers
are nearly spent. A chill
is seeping through the cracks
opening between the past
and the present.

Copyright © Paul Willason

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