…I remember, sweet fields of red clover,
green stalks soft and new, tops dipped in crimson,
just before being baked by the shimmery sun
but after they’d stripped off their equinox frocks
to lay naked and sunbathe and snooze

… ‘neath verdurous bows I’d lay gentle
to be rustled and stirred by love-winds
strumming intimate, soft rustling flamenco strains
on red bursts and green wands stirring passionate pleas
and my longing heart yearned contrapuntal

…my head cradled by my dearest doggie,
become Jacob’s stone pillow made living,
and her smile was my ladder to heavenly places,
she my only friend, she my constant companion,
Faithful avatar of Lady Grace

…her sides rising and falling she slumbered
and her dog-dreams broadcasting to touch me
with love-notes that ran thru the magic and mystic
and knit her, my heart, and the clouds and the clover
together in one ever-moment

…and I stared at that limitless blue sky
that held up the clouds, and I was certain
I could stand on them, jump from them only to land softly,
safe in the next passing snowy-cloud heart
to be kissed and be kept from all harming

…I would watch them yield to the wind’s wooing
and change shapes and become different things,
one by one as blue held up their heads and they transformed
to tell of my stories, such longing and aching,
the tale of my breaking young spirit

…and then I would strain hard to become one,
so the cloud of myself would grow solid,
and take tangible shape on the outside of who I was
wailing within, keening desperate to be
what my body and deaf earth denied me

…I would concentrate, willing my rough flesh
to go soft, to go secretly supple,
so my dog’s dreaming tides would wash o’er me and mold me
the who I was destined to be, and not what I was,
dark and substantial and wandering

…but it never worked, so tears would find me
and use me as their surf board to ride on
over billows of longing that swept me away,
but not away away, alas never AWAY
just to Jonah’s lost island of longing

…and Millie would wake at my sobbing
and lift her head to mine so tender
and snap out her pink tongue full of wet doggie balm
dripping healing she’d lick out her quick canine psalm
don’t cry, whine-lick, don’t cry dear, Amen.

…I remember sweet fields of red clover
I remember their scent washing over
and I see them still gleaming, but here now, not dreaming
they are blooming within me and beauty is streaming
to carry me there, to the clouds.