CRUSH! SMASH!
is all he heard
when the ball of his
tennis shoe descended
upon amber wings that hummed between
the sprays of honeysuckles…
SCRAPE! SCRAP!
scratch his ears as his foot twists
from side to side.

But that was in the decades that were care-free:
When the flower children danced in the streets, or when
Madonna blossomed into a siren.
Now, in his later ages, he and his children hear no more amber wings,
They hear no crackles of bodies or scratches under their soles:
all that they see are empty sprays of gushing honeysuckles,
letting off their aroma to summon the amber armada. None came.
Just silence in the millennium.
…..silence….
Because of his and his brethren’s ways.