You seldom wavered
You always questioned
When we never trusted
the smoke, the steam, the fog
or more precisely
the cooling towers
and modern chimneys
and their endless denials
in the names of our children;
Can you still detect the distant battle drums
beyond their crude walls
The silica source of our glass embrace
The contrast against concrete monuments
of their unrestricted restrictions,
Bringing us closer to fermented red serenities
and the eventual savoring
of the fresh water’s edge,
Long after the shareholder meetings we disrupted
We recall your robin song voice
and better futures
with frank sense and mirth
Respecting zebra mussels
and mocking invasive authorities
Toasting unnamed friends
and unimaginable foes;
For now I write you
between the lies that lie
somewhere beneath the troposphere
within the truth of an ideal world
hinted in poetic fragments
the looping visions of
just conversations and
sacred conservation,
the welcome evolution of
belated consummation
your uncompromising positions
in the plea garden of your resolve
like monks disrobing under shattered chandeliers,
writhing defiantly by candle-light,
the whispers detected,
the sighs recorded,
possibly even a strand sampled,
later revealed in legal documents,
exonerated
as simply
love.