Tag: Memories

Tried

Whenever we would go back home,
I tried to act my very best:
Say “sir” and “ma’am” and all that stuff,
So all of them would be impressed

At what an x-year-old I was.
They’d say, “That’s nice. Go play outside.”
Thus I learned my inconsequence:
To them, ‘twas just their patience that

I’d tried

She Was The Autumn

She was the autumn: elegant and kind,
But full of loss. The colors turned, and so
Did she; to coming wintertime resigned,
And pensive in the glade, the interglow.

The too-much gift of nature sometimes borne,
Until the leaves come off, and days grow dark;
The comforter who slips away to mourn,
On solitary walks out in the park.

She was so much and yet so little known,
Admired, but not really understood —
I see her there, as fallen leaves new-blown,
Out on the edge of fall, within the wood.

  She was the autumn: kind and elegant —
  But life came hard; she folded and then
  Went

Early Fall At University

They tossed a Frisbee back and forth
Out on the college lawn;
Their only labor on that day
Was jumping after mis-throws.
I watched them through a window-pane
For several hours, straight,
A book that I was reading lay
Mostly uncomprehended —

And as I watched these other guys,
Whose names I didn’t know,
I looked around me at
My fallow dorm room, new
(My roommate I had yet to meet)
And wondered if I’d ever get to know them.

A junior transfer, me, I was
Both worried and excited:
But feeling like
I’d walked into the middle of
A play, one which
The others saw a first act that
I’d missed.

Another friend came out to join them,
And he brought three cans
Of something they all sat awhile and drank.
And I was like a kid again
In still another neighborhood,
Watching another set of boys
And hoping for an invite.

Looking down, I noticed that
I hadn’t turned a page
Of Dandelion Wine
In quite awhile,
The world was autumn-ready,
And I guess that I was, too,
In my distracted way.

Another moment of my ever-long

Distracted

Way

The Winter Stars Came Out That Night

The winter stars came out that night
To smile on us, and sing —
We watched our breath in clouds like smoke,
Our faces coloring —

We sang our carols in the snow,
And glided towards the dawn,
December in our hearts, we watched
Until the stars were gone.

We went back with our families,
Each one to different lives;
That village now, a different place.
But this one thing survives —

A memory like yesterday,
And I can guarantee it:
The winter stars came out that night
And we were there

To see it

breezes blowing

breezes blowing clothes hung on a line —
it makes me think of you —
colors waving banners in the wind,
just like we used to do

we were breezes too were you and me,
a random dance in motion —
we were every wind that’s every blown,
and every last emotion

breezes blowing, summer has to go:
such is the path of living,
where you are today i do not know,
but nothing needs forgiving

for you did the best you could with me
before your time for going —
now and then, though, i’ll still think of you
when i feel
breezes

blowing

Guessed

I guessed that I was drunk; I’m pretty sure I was

I was twenty, there was a party

I remember the room being full of dancing couples
(The song was “True” by Spandau Ballet)

I was the only one not dancing

Being a mathematician,
I realized I was literally “the odd man out”
And attempted to calculate the probability
That one of the couples would fight
And the girl would turn to me out of spite and anger
Which seemed reasonable to me in that state

I gave the couples two more songs to have spats
That didn’t happen
Several of them seemed closer to having children than disagreements
So I left

Up the stairs, down the hall
To my dorm room
Keys on the table
Unsteady and only partially focused
I mused as to the outrageous un-fickleness of women

And how much I had wanted to dance to that song

Which is not something I would have

Guessed