Abandoning the Umbrella

Dead umbrellas’ dance of ribs
Exposed beneath torn colorful skin
Or collapsed in casual asymmetry
Of repose newly askew

Face down the rag dispensers
Weekly monthly black and white trash
Thrown down by wind and hosed down by sky
Wreckage of enterprise

Avian fly-by song greeting
Weather breaking new day
Washed of the homeless
Redraws its natives with sun

Memory of the storm recedes
With the flooded stream
Reflections winking blue sky
With the puddle’s open eye  

Drying, litter unglues itself
In the breeze tumbling  
Across the river of my life
I walk like rain
My footsteps like raindrops
Shattering on the surface

The gale of the real breaks  
The ribs that frame
The fragile canopy of my hope
Falling from my hand
It lies broken
Unencumbered I walk free

-- Tom Rubenoff