A child is in the house alone.
The other howling snatching children
and the big people all are gone.
To tell him what and where he must
be at, to shout, now there is no one.
He could shout himself, if he should want.
Now he could break and run,
stampede, across the rooms, upstairs and down.
No hands that grab and squeeze him to the bone
and stop him are anywhere around.
No threat surrounds him now and towers
over him in the seeming peaceful
murmurs and silences of giants and gangs.
The thought to yell and charge starts dying,
almost, in him. He sits quiet.
There is a gold and purple twilight
in the window, with lightning bugs
beginning to light, afloat
in the fir tree in the yard.
The house is locked and neat,
the wastes he was charged with taking out
are disposed, the stars are up above
the roof, slow turning, soft and hard.
The dusk of struggle keeps increasing.
He grows the knowledge of the good.
— from Juniper Volume 8, Issue 1