bluebells & eucalyptus
   trailing like kindness
      behind Spanish doors

by Cassady Black



                             for a troubled friend, on his 43rd birthday

If you were born (again) today
there would be a hundred balloon animals
shaped like baby kittens
launched into the California sky to
mark the moment you began. You would
laugh (as your first hurrah)
a tiny baby laugh
to learn you came into a century
where you could be born
post-Richard Nixon
yet be young enough to be the
secret love-child of Britney Spears.
It would be duly noted on your
(computerized) birth certificate
that you were too smart for
the ordinary world
and thus required special
attention, served up upon request
(like a vegetarian meal on an airline)
and a dozen beautiful girls who would
dance the flamenco (quietly) when needed
while you slept, to remind you of joy,
and possibilities. You would not be
required to walk through the fire
or pay any pipers
or suffer the dreaded consequences
but rather be granted a lifetime
season pass to live in the world that
lies behind Spanish doors
full of bluebells & eucalyptus
trailing like kindness through
moonlit gardens
where love & imagination thrive
on the (jazzed) music that’s gone before
where both sun-starved violets and
new baby children learn
how to soar.








© Cassady Black


Cassady Black is an editor at Slow Trains.



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