the sun through trees at close of day
as hand in hand we walked away
and spoke of love’s delicious pang
as footsteps fell and crickets sang
and i remember her perfume
a gentle flower new in bloom
her hands as soft as silk at dawn
as darkness grew and we walked on
in all of that we silent stepped
as love’s fair secrets well we kept
of agonies we only knew
and flights of geese, and fallen dew
the mem’ry takes its leave and flees
like fading day
of sun
through trees
Down there, where I grew up, the land is flat.
The water and the beach bring people in,
But we lived bayside, where a bayou sat
Ringed off by reeds and houses and a bridge.
I drive through looking; all of it seems strange.
I lived with hills too long where we have been,
And slowly, what I think of normal’s changed,
Less reed and bayou, more of leaf and ridge.
This weird and dim flat land that was my home
Like any home you leave, looks different now:
I loved this place when it ‘belonged’ to me,
But that once-ownership’s passed on, somehow —
And viewed now, as an older, tired man
The flatness seems more me and less the land
The shadows live; the mem’ries are the light.
I call out to a voice that is not there,
No longer listening. No more the fight
Shall take me in. I’ve passed beyond all care,
But not because no joys are left. There are
Some motions, and some stillnesses to love,
And decent balm to put upon each scar.
There’s less and less I find suggestive of
My once great purpose: to exultant live
Among the many, energized, alive —
I still have strength to lift up and forgive,
Yet I would rather wait and watch than strive.
We don’t give in, we simply give up trying;
The shadows live, when it’s us who are dying
Come sit with me beside the fading day;
Our energy is spent, but love is real,
And time is ours, there is no cause to steal,
Nor are there any secrets to betray.
Come sit with me, and we can take it in:
The process of unfolding, and it’s kith —
The what-is-good, that’s more a who-you’re-with,
The melody of all the good that’s been.
Come sit with me, the night is drawing near —
It’s all I’ve ever wanted, just a chance
To take these quiet moments and advance
Into the hope that circles us, this sphere —
So much we must withstand, or stand up to:
That I can stand, when I can sit with you.
The woods reveal themselves, and thereby, me.
Each gnarled path, and tangled root, a time
In how it is a life becomes to be;
The bramble and the mess, a paradigm.
I love the crunch, the slippery, the mud;
I love the stinging cold and somber gray.
The signs of fire, and the marks of flood
Display the manner hard day stacks on day.
The woods reveal what cannot quite be said,
Of living times and dying, mixed in one:
The footsteps heard, like echoes of the dead,
The roaring silence, all the courses run.
And I can also hear, within the breeze,
How one day, I’ll be gone, and feed
The trees
There can be worlds within a room, it seems;
A population equal parts at play,
At work, at rest, and busy with their dreams.
The hip-hop, and the line dance — the ballet —
All types of dancing, singing, and the like.
The sweat of labor, and the blood of toil —
The medical: the surgeon and the psych;
The searcher, both of answer and of foil —
The populace of every time and place,
Collapsed into a space upon a couch:
Such myriads within a single face
May seem unlikely, but its truth I’ll vouch:
However long, I will not reach the feat
Of meeting all the you’s I’d love to meet
How many angry words are too soon said?
He reworks all of these, his long mistakes —
They rattle and they stab inside his head;
They gather into pools, and sometimes lakes.
Escaping does not quite seem possible;
The pools too deep, the lakes uncrossable —
And so they form a sort of slow revue:
The when and how, the why and where, the who —
So is this what a man becomes at last?
A parody? An anchor in the sand?
Or finally, just might he understand
That there’s no peace till there’s peace with the past —
To sit and hold, to breathe, and to believe,
And fade away like shadows of an eve
He wishes he could spare her tears today.
But there is nothing, nobody who can;
For tears will out – they’ll always find a way,
To issue when they will, despite of plan
That she might have of putting on brave face.
He loves her with an old man father’s love,
Full wishing he her sorrows could erase,
But knowing what her tears are symptoms of
He does not try to do what can’t be done.
No comforting with words that are but lies,
No hopes that have no hope, no stories spun,
Just loving silence all the while she cries.
But if a bridge from his love could appear
She could walk to the moon and back from here
I woke this morning heavy in the thought
Of what it was when you were in the room;
And though these many years have changes wrought,
Your scent’s still in the air, your presence felt.
The dead still brushing by me in my day
With more of wistfulness than nearing doom:
As sense and mem’ry twine in interplay,
Amid the daily cards that I am dealt.
But how you shaped me those long years ago,
The threads of yours that weaved into my loom,
These make up who I am – and will, although
The solar heat of age my mind will melt.
I hope, amid my soul’s infirmity
That you’re not disappointed, now, with me
(“The Weight of Memory” – 7-14-2015)
