Checkmate

The rook,
last soldier standing in an interminable chess match
between Neo-Confucian bureaucrats
The mandarin leans in,
runs a thoughtful hand through his beard
Liquid Eastern eyes survey the battlefield
and with fingers like skittering spider-legs
he makes his move
Checkmate!

Clunk.

Fast-forward
to a late September 4th of July--
we got rained out this year, we had to reschedule--

Pile into a blue Ford pickup from 1984,
baby backpacks and yellow Labradors
and head for the hills

Winding up through a fireworks display,
shower of autumnal sparks,
multicolored spurs in a game of
psychedelic jacks,
through the Roman candles and Catherine-wheels
to see him
See him standing there,
out of time and out of space:
a castle in its corner in a medieval game,
a north woods Steely Dan allusion
or an oblique Wild West reference
to Le Morte d'Arthur

The Labrador shakes himself,
muscular trunk rippling,
water-droplets flying
He's been entertaining himself
in a spring nearby
while the rest of the pack ascends
the spiral staircase and gazes
out through the looking-glass
onto a wide green country.

September 2010