Poem In Which The Author Finally Gets To Use The Word Arborvitae*

At last is a feeling
we so seldom know anymore.
We want what we want.
When we wanted it? Yesterday,
if not sooner. That's the statement
repairmen hear all day, and all day
long is no longer an accepted vocabulary.
Yet sometimes, in the hush of copse
at the end of a winding lane, a yard
filled full of June hush, fireflies,
dusk, we might begin to relinquish hurry.
Exhaled ahhhs nourish tired limbs, and
along the arborvitae, a satin soothing,
time's unticking.


*published in Bright, Burning Fuse (chapbook, Etched Press,) December 2008
Also appeared in The Long Islander , Spring 2007