...Neon Lights.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

i cannot leave this
place
i will miss the sounds
of birds

i can sacrifice the loneliness
of bird seeds

i can sit here for hours listening
to bird angsts

grief is shared here, miseries divided
the glory of lives shared and spread like

air in the forest trees like breaths of
butterflies on those wild flowers amid the stones

and rocks and mountain peaks as the morning sun
begins its usual peek.

city creature, leave me here for good
i am no longer the slave of your neon lights.