Choosing Uselessness

The casement is all angles of maple:
sill, sash, top and bottom rails,
stile, stool and apron - solid wood.

Beside the window, branches
pound against the tide of the wind.
The moon cracks

the west crest of the canal,
plops down the poplar row
and rolls into the road.

Overhanging green swells closer
as heat and tree frogs screech
in the bell of the dark.

Stone in hand and wind-twisted,
I'm playing hopscotch
on the street chalk squares.