Mosquitoes

The air is heavy as you strike out,
and sweat pools in the small of your back
as you walk down the path
carved generations ago
by the rail barons of another age.

The tracks are gone now,
and all that is left is the path,
straight and dappled with sunlight.
Normally you walk in the evenings
but you are restless,

other’s words rustling in your mind
like autumns ghosts,
warnings and scoldings, echoes of the past,
and you feel the need
to exorcise the vague unnameable demons

that hover in the stillness of the night.
The stream runs fast along the path,
swollen by rains and turbulent storms,
restless, like you, loud and splashing
and you march the long straight path.

There are mosquitoes, swarming,
bred and born in the puddles of the night’s rain,
fresh and ravenous, feasting
on your arms, your neck, on your balding head,
drawing blood faster than you can swat them away

in a madcap dance of murder,
You return, your arms pocked
by their tiny bites, scars so small
they are hardly noticed, unless you look close
and see the small red droplets,

almost invisible, yet painful,
like depression, nearly invisible, a plague of itching.
that goes away not with medicine, but with time
and distraction.
By mid morning, the night is a memory.

The bites no longer itch,
and you choose to remember,
not the voracious insects that feasted
on your blood, but the dappled sunlight
and morning air of a new day, waiting to be born.

About this poem

I went for a walk this morning with my camera, and the mosquitoes were maddening. I don’t think the Red Cross has gotten as much of my blood at they did this morning. So they got fed, and I got this poem.

That seems like a fair trade.

Tom

PS – The picture was take on the D&H trail this morning.