They Fall

The Indian-mint crushed underfoot
sends up a pleasing scent into the night,
into air thick with summer pine.
Their whispers fall away; the air drones
with fireflies like will ‘o whisps, ghost-souls.
Their eyes shine in the darkness like two owls’.
One last night. Summer’s done and now
the farewell campfire’s dead and damp with dew.
They walk on solemnly, slowly, steps imbued
with powerful importance. As they head
to the same spot as every night, the glen
across the stream, the shorter of them grins:
it’s still amazing—they’re both new to this—
but they’ve uncovered—God!—new ways
of being in the world. Both feel remade,
recast in bronze, shining like a god.
Above, a sudden flight of shooting stars:
the taller of them thinks of Icarus
(or—which one was it—was it Dedaelus?)
The clearing’s circled round with black-barked trees
and weeds that arch their backs, that stretch and reach—
The two boys sit on an old fallen branch,
take out their cigarettes with sweaty hands
and light them up. One thinks of fiery brands
and vengeful angels. One just smiles and holds
this stolen fire, this much-forbidden coal,
against the sky’s stern curtain with a smile.
Their eyes are burning low now, and they find
their fingers moving closer, then their hands
are clasped. A shot of heat-lightning fans
the silence, but they’re focused on
something like hubris, or like awe:
They are both beautiful. They are new.
They can do anything. And they do.

(from The Arcana Fragments, ca. 2003)