With summer gone

And the surprising cold

Of Alabama winter

Heaving into sight,

You would open the magic door,

And we would follow you

Beneath the floor

And behind the celler windows

Sealed by the comic pages

of the Post-Herald

(Peanuts behind the boxwoods,

Li'l Abner behind the azaleas).

You had carved an esophogus

In the dusty yet sterile dirt.

You still had to stoop

To miss the floorboards,

While Kim and I played miner,

Or probed for buried treasure,

Or fossils.

You'd proceed then

To the great metal monster,

"Old Tanglefoot",

To perform the alchemy

Called "lighting the pilot".



Afterwards, days were spent

In the warm, dry flow of air

From the floor vents

(Upon which,

Despite Mom's warnings,

Kim and I would sit

On the coldest mornings).

But it is the smell of dusty dirt

Shining yellow against dark shadows

Under the floor-turned-ceiling,

With you taming the dragon's roar  

Of the great metal beast

In the still-warm days of October,

That will haunt my dreams forever.


       ŠNovember 4, 1998