two hundred years ago I would
have been a word troubadour wandering
between villages full of laughs and alcohol
writing by moon beam reading by firelight
welcomed as a lover of spoken magic
deliverer of tears and hope to sore hearts
teacher of foolishness celebrator of the trivial
dabbler in the divine murmurer of the sublime
when I left I’d be missed and mulled
like that one pink cloud at dusk
that darkens at the horizon
like the last line of a poem
that promises to return
in three nights in a dream