(Junior Likes This…And She Knows)

today we can hear

the prayers of beasts

caught in the lights

of our passing fancies

saying please please

won’t you stop won’t

you listen to the wind

the trees and the sun?

no we say for we have

no time left before we

are gone into history

no time to stop a single

second of the clock we set

no time for wind or sun

or a heartbeat’s worth

of your tiny timid love

we are going places so

fast we haven’t had time

to remember what we left

behind when we started

and now you ask us to stop?

you cannot be serious

you do not stop fate’s call

more urgent than all of life

but please they pray again

won’t you stop and stay

with us and let this fate

find another road to follow?

when we are all so still

the wind and trees and sun

will whisper us a new life

more urgent than tomorrow

no we will not be stopped

defeated by some doubt we

will never know if we keep

on going and never never

look at what we’ve passed

or take a single breath

of wind and trees and sun

to throw us off our pace

that is all you have to say?

they ask and we answer with

the roar of our machines

until they stop still and go

away forever to the places

we will never know of

even though we always said

we’d go there too someday

when it was finally time to stop

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.