Fire in the distance
Genie from a bottle
A restless dark smoke
(excerpt from “Haiku Collage: Suburban July” by Andrew Hall, American River Review 2006)
I watch the fire crackling in the faux brick fireplace, listen to the storm swirling about outside the sliding glass, the wind howling in the chimney. I wonder where you are tonight, when you’ll be home, if you’ll reach out to me when you come to bed or if you’ll show your back to me once again.
Genie in the bottle, covering the gray, belies the stress of our hidden inner lives, lives we hide even from ourselves at times. You and I go through the motions, not seeing the death knell in the restless black smoke rising from the ashes.
Where do we go from here, as the chicks leave the nest, all but the cuckoo who refuses to fly, refuses to stretch his wings to the sky?
Will our eyes meet again or are we fated to fill our days talking to the table, the stove, the mirror instead of each other?
Can we turn the smoke from black to white, back to the first ignite?
I miss you, my dear. Please, come home.
