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The Way of the Dragon:
The gardener feeds the dragon
every late autumn
through winter,
in light that mists
rather than highlights,
he tosses gold and red scales
onto the dragon’s form -
even as it slumbers it grows.
I stand by the window
watching the gardener
return over and over;
scales overflowing
from his black barrow -
a finger of mine
touches the glass,
leaves an imprint there,
a stain
to be dealt with later.
I have watched this scene
through several years
and been witness to
the dragon’s growth spurts
and the way it shrinks,
partly, in summer:
a waxing and waning
as the relationships
between gardener, scales and dragon
intensifies and cools – reminding me
of my wife’s first smile
and her cool eyes today.
The slumbering dragon
gains girth -
scales slide into position
the way words
can escape a mouth
and never be returned.
The gardener continues to feed
The dragon, his breathe
exhaling in small mounds of smoke
as if he too breathes fire -
behind me
my wife sits reading;
the silence between us
another dragon -
I wait for the sleeping to end.
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