Still Life Poem by Charles Lampert

sky rotates like a watch fob
small creatures skitter across dusty alleys
raising small clouds
invisible but for indentations
giving indications of paranormal activity

fleeting critical awareness
illuminates understanding like
phosphorescent mushrooms
in a grotto dripping
calcium water having
never seen light.

Their promise was wrapped
in the senescence
of a chrysalis hanging frozen
from a wind-blasted pine
at the top of mountain ridges

having no expectations
nor memory of the half-sphere
overhead dotted white by
small clouds twisting
into turrets weeping tear crystals