Humpty Dumpty Together Again

On one of those butt-planted, heel-slamming 
mornings

(You know: when you kicked your legs out one 
at a time and your bare heels took turns against
the wall you were sitting on,

When daffodil fingers lifted the sun in the 
pine-treed East and left him alone (no strings 
attached) to climb the blue,

When shedding packs of chainless dogs cocked 
right hind legs then left on the spindly trunks 
of dogwoods,

When untanned tummies and shoulders and backs 
surrounded halter tops and lithe oil of olay legs 
ended in matted blue and white Levi strings on 
one end and flip-flopped feet on the other,

When books lay in bushes' shadows . . . irrele-
vantly,

When the Greenlawn Wall overflowed with heal-
slammers settling in the grass by the spindly 
trees stretching wintry legs long to sandaled 
points,

When Plato was formless and Milton’s was the 
only paradise lost,

When frisbees flew like blue birds to 
behind-the-back spin-around grabs or wobbled 
like overstudied or overstoned sophomores to 
brick sidewalks,

When blood surged like mountain rivers and 
bumblebees wooed crocuses before loving them).

He came out of the pines -- maybe from Carrboro –
like Robin Hood or Dionysus or Jesus with over-
alls and a ten-gallon wicker basket rimmed
with daffodils that matched his hair and beard 
like the sun that climbed the blue.  And . . . 
after finding a toe-snuggling perch he began 
giving away his smiles and flowers (no strings 
attached).

                         --Charlie Lehman
       Published in “Grains of Sand” 1979