Four Nostalgias Written in Light
by Wulf Losee

nostalgias

i.
I remember the child who watched the sun ripple the icicles
I unfocused the playful spokes of light through my almost-shut eyes
as I curled up in my mother's chair on some short but infinite afternoon
I let the light squeeze in behind my eyes and around the base of my brain
It purred like a cat within me -- then I blinked to capture afterimages
Amoebas of phosphorescence crawled on the warm screen of my eyelids

ii.
I remember the white light of a Spring that prowled outside my musty
house of shadows -- her painful brightness beckoned me out into the day
with the voice of a lover promising me the season of unfolding leaves
which unfurled within me and burst from my body like parasitic wasps
I became a green man whose mouth exploded with tendrils and vines
and my heart was a thorn flower blossoming in the urgencies of Spring

iii.
I remember floating down a stream dappled with the overlight
of scenes from many summer rivers that have become a single memory
I cannot unweave their days into separate strings of moments
except that the warm curves of innertubes cradled me many times
as I spun on the axis of damselflies above the shady motions of trout
Water striders skated away on the dimpled flecks of surface tension

iv.
I remember the sun that disintegrated the morning's heavy fog
and it revealed leaves of incendiary color dripping with the night's rain
I heard the panting croaks of ravens scavenging the matted fields
A lone red dragonfly prowled at the edges of a wilting marsh
flying into my memory poem on the last warm day of October --
words written in light -- meaning accumulates like frost