Ours has hung between the pear and the walnut for decades, mostly as decoration, representative of an idyllic life, something to aspire to.
We like the idea of swinging in the air under the full-leafed boughs. (A bad idea, however, when the fruit is ripe and falling.)
We like giving ourselves a push and looking up through the rocking boughs.
We like it, too, in the dark, swinging under the Milky Way, the radiation of the universe affecting our souls. We like to think it's curative.
HAMMOCK
Swing in that between
between the dusk and night before
before the cloud pillars expire,
Between to watch the dark lie down
down in green thatch of the field,
field of crickets keening light,
Geese in dark procession down,
vires black-beaked in the boughs
swing in that between.
copyright 2010 J. O'Brien, all rights reserved
