The listener

In the glove of twilight

Our man of twenty two

pads along the powder cow path road

to the last rise

above the grand grand valley below.

In a dreamt jacket of lizard skin,

shouldering a paunchy canvas backpack,

his threadbare desert boots with mended laces

make small dusty puffs

in time with his panting breaths.

Sits down, he does,

on an afterthought stump,

just at the lip.

His pearly whites illuminate.

Eyes are shining burning red.

Lips in taut crescent smile.

He twinkles above them,

they twinkle below.

The myriad thousands.

So silent through this slice of the airs.

They are here, he knows.

The seeds of stories.

Tragic, magic, triumphant, sad, comic,

Love, and Rage.

Tonight, he feeds.