Soft tread, soft glow, she’s a firefly
in a black hoodie, black mood, she’s walking by
on a country road, with snug bug headphones
pumping lo fi beats, piano tones.
School blazer, senpai-hazer, plaid skirt,
breezy frills, black stockings, mid-thigh flirt,
luminescent crescent lunar-lobed ear
sprouting diamond petals, her black bangs sheer;
ambling, rambling, moontime walk,
hill humps, roadside bumps, cricket talk,
stars distant, obi-bright, pebble speckled,
blue nebula banners helter-skelter freckled,
full moon brimming, limning, dreaming radiance,
the moonbow spectrum and its gleaming gradients.
The tanuki strolls up along beside her,
a raccoon bear without a care, as tall, but wider,
straw hat, sleepy gaze, whistling his song,
swaying arms, masked face, bobbing along,
no words, no eye contact, just some space
in warm Summer air, and the slight trace
of matcha tea, of forest freshness, quite mellow,
now street signs glowing here and there, bright yellow,
two figures part at the coming parkway yield
and he lays down in a nice rice paddy field.
Shoegaze drone now, briny oceanic breeze,
kiss of soft-flung surf, the low-key ease
of tides glaze-lazing to a lounge rhythm,
the tip-toeing piano cadence within them,
lulling stroll, gloss-stare, the forgetful sands,
sonorous seaside cliffs, echo-waves, drowsy lands,
a mountain sloping to a nonchalant crest,
encoiled in a centipede of silent forest,
eyes aglow in the syncopating serpent depths,
old monk mantra along tottering treble clefs,
shuffling silent sneakers seeking inland,
a pink valentine card held in hand,
the fireflies blinking with a mild, beguiled beat,
the pitter-patter of phantasmal feet,
pale-faced spirits hopping in the high tree tops,
beyond the Shinto shrine sheltered in the copse,
jittery, chittering childlike babble,
a somnolent little branch-borne rabble
and concordance with the green leaf rustle
in the torpid winds, quiet hustle-and-bustle,
never hurrying, yet coming, by and by, along
as she follows her innocent inner song.
Power lines, now, streetlights, lamp posts,
electric hum, neon lights, jaywalking ghosts,
small town midnight-twilight, insomniac windows,
no headlights, no bed-frights, the wind blows
unheard, unseen, her black hair still,
unmoved, slight frown, turning of her heel
down a sidestreet, panes dim, white wall alley
as percussion beats palpitate, then rally.
Long walk without talk, she reads the address,
still bobbing to mellow music, a raven tress
gone astray, the headphones looser now,
but not off, firefly glow waning on her brow.
A crow crosses the moon, wings like eyelashes
as the moon’s eye blinks, and the car crashes
in flashback, (crash-smack), soft as a dying mist
in dim memory, and now this long-sought tryst.
A waking dream, long-sought scheme, a lost lullaby
as the lo fi beats fade, fade, fade, the heartbeats die.
Looking up at his window, she sees, she knows
the music stopped hours ago, and now the wind blows
but is unfelt, unknown, a thing now apart
like the valentine card, and his beating heart.
Setting the card down, she turns away,
fading out with the music, and the coming day.
Tangleroot And Tressknot 