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Impermanence Charlotte Pence
A fading red ball in grass. An old retriever sleeping on his monogrammed bed. The sun warbles through leaves, dandelions— flashes behind a hundred ghostly spokes. White. A breeze. Then not. Autumn waits at the end of this day, elbows resting on knees. Chin propped. And a girl begins knocking on the front door selling off-brand chocolate bars for the junior high band. Trip to D.C. We don’t consider that the grass records any of this. After all, the pine cone never thanks the pine tree, and how would we know if it did? But that red ball. Candy-smudge red, Chalked-rose red, scarred-skin red. And glint of a gold foil wrapper swaying to the ground. Grass that flattens after her feet as she cuts to the next yard. And then, the bucking up, like a gymnast raising from a back bend, as each blade attempts to spring back. A quiet clicking. Faint white lines of almost breaking. |
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