"Selves within Selves"

The light is long, as a sigh,
The last throes of ecstasy before sleep
Moves up the body.
The air continues to chill, and yesterday the lake
Was somehow cooler than last week-
The swim to the dock beset with an awareness
That soon, I will not transit in this way
Across its smooth surface.
Instead, my eyes will dart above it as a curious dragonfly
Which, by fall, will be skeletal in the reeds.
Change has been ongoing all summer,
And in our orgasmic quest for sunshine,
We don't dare to notice
That the Earth, it spins,
And in fact lives in night
And our golden moments are at the convenience of her dance.
The garden upstairs is still festive,
Though the sunflowers are bowed as penitent monks,
The vines of harvest have done their work and fruited
And now relax from the strain pass'd,
And I savor this, from the touch of it
And the mystery which blows through the window,
And the drone of cricket, which, for whatever reason,
Overwhelms all else,
Settles over every leaf in steady music,
And turns it.
Turns me.
The air, though, so still
Yet the little bell on a string
Rocks with near imperceptible motion
Stirred not by the ascent of breath
But by the passage of memory itself
Years within years, selves within selves
Passing through a slight morning in August
My bones themselves a season
As I open the door
And spill out, step by silent step, into timelessness.