Arrival

We had thought they would arrive in something metallic, something saucer-shaped or triangular. None of us suspected that the tattered shred of a wispy white parachute floating down from a cerulean sky would harbor any threat. It seemed harmless as a cobweb.

low tide—
a colony of jellyfish stranded
on the dunes

But when it settled down in the town square; when we rushed up to touch it, they detached themselves from its cloak, translucent as ghosts, and drifted out among us. And when they moved toward the mountains, all the children followed.

No music, no Pied Piper playing or Orpheus strumming his lute, yet our children left us, obedient to the cadence of their shimmering dance.

winter night—
from house to house
the rising wind