The Disappointment

All day long – through the cold morning

rising along sturdy thighs to hot steel noon –

it built up in the eastern sky –

only a cumulus formation without the chance

brown correction of cheap sunglasses, but in shades

an intricate effortless achievement, like an acid flash:

a rangy, intricate glory of faces and valleys,

ascension of peach- and granite-colored cloud,

here a face drafted in different-sized eyes, there

a route that didn’t quite pan out, but also never ended,

narrative chasing its own tail, until it seeped

and pilled into a cheery dark-pearl evening,

still warm down here, but less detail now above,

ridges and gullies and ravines soothed over

such a harmless flotsam sky that never threatens;

and now a throng of listeners is ready for transmission,

a thousand dark green rapt faces upturned

not daring to move (no wind, anyway)

minority flipped over onto their pale undersides,

attentive, exhausted, thought of summer coming,

far as eye can see, hanging still profiles

in layers on branches near the house,

all turned to me as I broach my great topic,

the disappointment, how a day spooled out

from what looked like my own tense empty hands,

how no music was cued to score the heartbreak,

no song for all hours today told this story

that has waited valiantly to reach the trees.