more collaboration...

This is another piece done by myself and my brother Chad Austin. My favorite that we have done together.

Brothers in Arms

Sitting in the fading afternoon sun,

warm breeze carrying
my thoughts away, I look over

a reticulation of high-ridged

moraines and drumlin hills, gently rippling.

The stippled light reveals

a bird in flight, caught

in time lapse motion. Slowed wings

beating inaudible rhythms, captured

 inside my tympanic chest

while perched here in this hillside copse.

Ice dammed lakes give way 

to kettles, conjuring childhood memories

of playing a fox-holed soldier, fallen

limb for a rifle, prepared to ambush

any "foe" caught unaware. We were

brothers in arms, him and I.

These days time does the assailing

and each hour carries boyish dreams off 

to settle in some new child's head. 

Memories of climbing

immense sand dunes fall away.

My brother running ahead,

the delicate patterns in the sand turning

to wrinkles at the corners of my eyes. 

Deep furrows in my hands mirror

the landscape stretched out below.

His head disappearing

on the down-slopes, taking longer

each time to reappear.

Still I struggle to catch up. 

Sand kicked up by blistering wind

temporarily blinding.

Lost from sight now,

these recollections sting

like those wind-whipped grains

on youthful cheeks. Scars remain,

with the glacial passage of time.

His face in the knotted bark

of an elm tree, his voice whispering

in rustling leaves, telling tales of chasing 

deer and quail and each other

through these woods- easier prey

than our demons and shadows.