In a Small Village

Watching clouds cross streets
Empty except for two girls,
One on a bike, one running,

And the cat following them
In and out of trees and sun,
Through the shadows of the clouds,

A half thought hovered
Beside an open window.
Everything from everything

Disappeared into nothing,
Resulting in nothing much.
What was not alive became

What was alive and became
Something else, alive or not.
One little girl reappeared

With a gift of popsicles
Provided by her freezer.
If what was alive and not

Could and had to interchange,
Could something that was neither
Arise between them, like this

Floating poem, hovering thought
That words and numbers were souls,
Were ghosts, the almosts that named

Themselves and that were themselves
The names, themselves the floating
Clouds, thoughts, and open windows

In a village where two girls
Walked across bright lawns, trailing
Clouds of words, one wordless cat?