the red cat.

Spending so long speaking in roomfuls of a hundred: two hundred people who may or may not listen has made him a little deaf: the little red man.

His voice has become a loud, blaring, unbeautiful thing: projected out of necessity (and soul, perhaps).

And I remember again: rides on white elephants fit for the glorious sheikhs and sultans of old; behind old and dilapidated houses: lean-to and woodsome and beautiful.

And wide-open spaces: and soft grey skies: hung and heavy with the promise of rain.

We were so young: was it easier, then? Much to the full: down in the dawning.

And so it is a marvelous thing, to grow and to learn: and to see and to sigh: but these things of the world, these people we see and perchance love: these voices and faces.

All the worldly world we are wrought to, it is all a fair (or unfair?) exchange: the easiness and loveliness of youth for the brawny, grainy knowedness of the seen and convoluted world.

And now all the world is true or false: milk and honey dreaming: step and stone on the yarrow-heart of it all.

And I the writer: I the pen: I the brush and ink, and color-run: what little corpuscle am I in the knowedness of the seen and sighing world?

And how fair and fragile, my seeming child: my wrought-of-nuts-and-bolts.

She goes on par with excellence: silent-knit and full heart-worn: hand-in-hand with morbid death.

She flying comes: and seething runs: in the shadow of a waking dream: of fairy queens and mermaids drond: and Melusina fair and free.

And perchance the part: once so taken to heart so long ago is lost.

And perchance the flair: true summer air: will be the winsome loss in time.

And now we see: in sweet reverie: the lull-and-sigh of great escape.