Words

Words my old companions
my missed friends
where have you gone this season?
Surely not the garden where
I sit in sun in search of you
looking at flowers I cannot name
and birds I would rather see in my plate
you aren't there my old friends,
I wander here and there
observing a colony of ants
governance over who has the fate of
the dying bumble bee,
I watch them gather, oh what little people!
And then i look from here
to there
eyes settling then wandering off again
to the rusty fence of my self-made
prison
to the squeaky gate of captivity
but I've seen the world in all coats
and watched the neon lights turn on
and off and followed
of swarm of yellow cabs with my
eyes,
there is nothing for me out there
no words in the crowded streets
poetry isn't waiting in lines
and getting off and on and off
and off metal that makes you
go go go
Words, you aren't there either
you have left the dingy bars empty
and the disco lights dim
My friends you've left the city
so there i sit in a forest of plants
unknown and political insects
wondering if you are among them
lurking in the trail of the tiny slug
voyaging the expanse of my garden
or perhaps you jump with the grasshoppers
who are Tarzan to my uncut grass
making loud noises as they jump from
stem to stem.
My old friends, come to me, I'll
wait day after day still as that honeybee
that watches flowers like hawks
ready to pounce on them
as though they will run off
leaving him like you did me.
Adamantly I wait and wonder
and search and hope
amidst little strangers
for my friends to return.
Words beloved
words missed.