The Children

To know a shadowed hail
of eternity
while standing
in the puckered kiss
of sunlight powdered
rain.


The sky seemed
a confused marble,
rolling in 
a dark blue pail.


Shot back and forth by bleached white children

swimming up above in these clouds.

Swirling up there,
they drop tears of joy
cleaved seals in approval
of the living and the dead.

I wonder if they swell in
giggling billows and grin
over oakwood trees,
smiling at you from that
airy distance,

just like they do at me.