Panorama
We turn the corner to our street
and my daughter cries out home!
Although what she actually sees
are the blue mountains framed
in oak trees like a panorama.
The mountains will be here
long after our neighborhood
is forest once more, but for now
they are friendly and contained.
We’ve just come from watching
you sleep, the evening light gentle
on your face like a studio film.
We all stood around you discussing
your beauty for the last time.
In the allegory of Plato’s Cave,
what happened to the people
who held the puppets behind the fire?
I think they may still be standing there
among slack ropes and ashes.