Spring View

So many emperors in our midst.
It warms and then a fog rolls in.
Will it lift when my artist friend
draws her crowd at bay’s edge?

Complacent in the face of heat,
unwilling to inconvenience, so
all is thrust upon others, floods
and droughts, sun storms, hues

not usually seen. Soon a fever
or two move steadily north to
bask in it while coral reefs die,
we read, distant and detached.

If I mention a beachfront, then
you appear, a handknit white
sweater and your tanned face,
much as a waxing moon does

with clockwork regularity, but
a slower rhythm unlike waves.
Brick walls and a long whitish
range bring another to mind.

I could express regret or savor
the play that commenced then
ended, a year or seven, give or
take a month, but my savoring

is truer to memory. My mind
tilts toward pleasure and yet
pain trails not far behind. Its
doleful looks pass through me

to strike life’s mirrored ending,
its endless self-reflection with
a cast of others, appearing then
disappearing yet again, whereas

we figure somehow as a drifting
presence, only briefly present
even then, slipping easily as
our malleable selves do, who

wink as they say who we are,
while who they are remains
a mystery. Empires still vying
obscure this view of spring.