The listener

In the glove of twilight
Our man of twenty two
pads along the powder cow path road
to the last rise
above the grand grand valley below.
In a dreamt jacket of lizard skin,
shouldering a paunchy canvas backpack,
his threadbare desert boots with mended laces
make small dusty puffs
in time with his panting breaths.
Sits down, he does,
on an afterthought stump,
just at the lip.
His pearly whites illuminate.
Eyes are shining burning red.
Lips in taut crescent smile.
He twinkles above them,
they twinkle below.
The myriad thousands.
So silent through this slice of the airs.
They are here, he knows.
The seeds of stories.
Tragic, magic, triumphant, sad, comic,
Love, and Rage.
Tonight, he feeds.