Tell a story says one,
paint a picture says another,
sing a song shouts the crowd!
Do what you will to entertain us!
So before an audience
of ladybugs, ants, bees, raccoons,
I walked on stage and composed,
and sang,
and led them to hidden valleys
of romance and adventure.
Then I bowed
and retreated to my house,
listening to the buzz of wings,
the scratching of feet,
the stealth of ants.
Even a stray crow who crashed the gate
called out in appreciation
and flapped his wings.
Rousing success.
I had arrived
in the space of the small,
the colonies of wax,
the subterranean caves of eternal dark,
the forces of sun and honey.
Having tea at my table,
before a prairie of grass and bushes,
in the quiet of my porch,
I pondered what I had done.
Who had heard my efforts,
what each of the creatures
had taken away.
And in the blue foam of a huge sky,
under the towering branches of the clouds,
and the wayward sails of the wind,
I knew I had ascended
like an invisible whisper.
A pure shadow, into their world,
and they had seen a man
for the first time,
with thoughts like the wings of a butterfly,
the heart of a dove.
And I was accepted as one of their own,
and felt an infinite happiness
to be with the citizens,
of wheat and grass,
who cross the floor of heaven
with tiny feet,
never making a sound.