But when you called my name,
In this time of bicycles and fresh afternoons,
I stood where the sidewalk turned west.
.
Leading me by the vacant windows
Where the sophisticates would sit,
High on the wine of their indifference,
Their laughter: cruelly mocking relief,
Really, though, just fragile threads,
Held fast by nothing more than frayed ends
Giving way to a life gone easy and fallow:
This was not your voice.
.
Further down the way,
Etched across hunkered, toiling hopes,
A lifetime of soured chances,
Spent casting ropes, and thinking
Oh, the thinking!
Surely this time,
A loop will catch,
And pull the whole of us along.
No, this was not your town.
.
In that time of bicycles and fresh afternoons,
The fired afternoon glory of the grass
Still holding fast to its grand summer celebration
Marks the path,
From where you once called my name,
Calling us all home again
For the wind and rain to hold us fast.
Shaken Rain 