A TWILIGHT BOULEVARD

 

 

A TWILIGHT BOULEVARD

Why can’t a man be like a tree? In smaller terms,
why can’t a man be like a leaf, or maybe a flower?

If he were this maple, watch how its green foliage...
quickly turns to a rainbow wall, a magic of fall.

If he were that dissembling leaf turned barn-red
from its primrose green fencing golden footpaths

with petals tied like yellow ribbons on a welcome
road, would he not make growing old a big party?

Why not a wash of pink on these fey petals then,
before they crinkle into the wrinkles of autumn?

There must be a celebration of virginal spring
that in the heat of summer reaches a crescendo

of blooming, of a flirting dance with the wind,
a delicate fandango to the rhythm of castanets!

Is that any way to age? It must be the only way.
It begins with the breaking of shoot from seed,

the lusty towering into that árbol de fuego, a bole
of flames, firetrees fencing out the drab cobbles

of a one-way street meandering through dread,
a fool’s boulevard of discarded days and dreams.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA