The future is a hazy landscape. Every tree,

Bush blooming, overflowing

with lilac, soft petal-ed flower somehow

fits perfectly together with the rocks

and the ruins of an old and beautiful castle

with varying turrets thrusting

into a yellow-suffused sky. The clouds are

indistinct, the edges blended

impressionistically into each other

and the blue around them,

with the jewel-bright optimism

of that 9-o’clock-in-the-morning

way the world has;

good things ahead,

people beloved to see,

accomplishments to savor and food to taste,

and the knowledge that it can be pulled out

and remembered fondly any day,

a duller day

like the present.