I've been doing some shuttling myself today.

6

 
A monarch ambled aimlessly toward Mexico.
Lost in the corn, he knew where he was going.
Knowledge fed humility; he was a gentle king.
There is a cypress where all monarchs go.

 
The cricket schemes a quainter camouflage.
His ordinary droning screed pretends
it cannot penetrate the summer blinds,
short-circuiting the season's slow demise.

 
But we hear differently, upon our swing.
Its iron triangles are Archimedean;
paired parallels ascend into a green
and absent-minded Paradise (creaking).

                  
                 *

 
A swing rocks back and forth, reflectively,
summoning evening summers out of night
and day.  Its governance is just (slight
scraping of the hinges, anyway); see

 
how the old saws of the legal hacks (Coke,
Blackstone) frame up sturdy guarantees
of civil equity : see how proud trees
bend branches to a sigh's brush-stroke.

 
The bookish founders of our liberties
reflecting in their libraries (on Rome,
on London), brooked a necessary home-
truth : let the flower lead the bees.

                         
                                     7.4.06