for the niece: tod-zilla, at the hayward japanese gardens

skittering like four hands traced on paper,

doubled,

unfolded into eight spider legs

all knees and ankle high

she scampers

kicks rocks into the rock garden and off the path

until the lantana blossoms become a sudden

point

of

fo

cu

s

in the ray of sunshine

in the nonlinear line

of life.

let me be thus beholden to air

and the movement of glee

skoochyboogeying

until the sudden sunshine from cloud

seizes me in freeze of

frieze of

stillness

like turtles raising necks to bask

in the golden sun like their yellow and black geometry of skin

beneath the husk of their dome

let me be this wanton, this quick,

this slow, this whole,

this free

11-6-11

Scooter Cascadia