Snail's Trails

By William Brendan McPhillips

21st Century


In the used to be mornings
I'd be the one leap
First out of bed
And then out of sleep;
And I'd always tip toe
Across the floor
And down the stairs,
Despite the snore,
To sift in the ash
Of the night before
For the precious cinders
Of the new fire's core.

What ignited my mind
And lit my face
Was the delicate grace
Traced in silver trails
Across the floor
By itinerant snails
The night before.

Where they came from
And where they went to
Was hinted, of course,
In the silver clue,
But why they would choose
Such a route, at all,
Was a thing, I never knew.

I never did know,
In those dim lit dawns,
What a precious load
They took on the road
In their ever so practical
Fixed abode.

When it came my time
To turn the face
Away from the lace
Of myth and race,
I went out thither
And in my slither
Found that I carried
The whole of the place
Fastened to every
Nerve in my spine.

Now where I sit
On a stranger's chair
Inhaling my life
From the foreign air
Of another dawn,
A chirp is begun
In a crab apple tree
To welcome
The same old sun.

But whether I'm in
Or I'm out of my bed
There is always a place
Inside of my head
Where I trace the trails
Of a boy and his snails
Out of the days
And out of the nights
And onto the floors
Of pure delights.

DayPoems Poem No. 2281
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2281.html">Snail's Trails by William Brendan McPhillips</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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