Allegro and Adagio

Words tumble out of you
in a torrent of energy,
each one leaping
onto the back of the next,
fusing into white hot
thought knots.

Your stories flit,
meander into questions,
lose their threads,
pick them up elsewhere.

Your words bounce
like ping pong balls
and plunge
like kayaks through white water.
They flash
like swimmers in the fifty free
or sprinters in the 20-yard dash.

They slow, though,
as you take a breath,
move close.
Then,
they soften,
with you,
into the stillness
of the moonlit harbor.

Above us
stars and satellites and planes bound for Iraq
are streaming in the night sky.
The same moon
that waned
over the quickened pace
of the earlier evening
still illuminates the scene,
but now,
in a darkened gazebo,
with a single cricket
chirping out his solo,
adagio,
your mood shifts,
and you draw suddenly quiet,
as an evening's peace
descends.