Missing Those Old Times Poem by RIC BASTASA

moon
sun stars
clouds
trees
seas lakes
hills

are these all
that you can say?

there are those that
must be given: light, mist, waves,
depths, rolling
green
hanging cottons

we sometimes need to feel
what movements they have
drifting, wavering,
dive, thunder, lightning
softness of blue
softness of silk,
coldness of rain

and then let us move somewhere
into hands holding
our bodies side by side
against the coldness of the
ground and rocks

it is the intimacy that we lack
the sticky wetness
that we have forgotten
the entanglement of
lovely thoughts
the odor of dreams
the sweetness of our tongues
bones and cartilage
cinnamon and vanilla
sauce and pineapples
sugar and salt and the bitterness
of some herbs
all these ingredients
of life
they all make us whole again

not just stars and sun and moon
and sky

it is when we lie on the grass again
to see the maps of stars