A child’s echo across the field,
Wafting on sun and warmth,
Hovering for a moment, lingering.
Like a long time ago,
That one laugh,
Wild, excited discovery,
Stirs an afternoon nap, however brief.
When new light finds the old window again,
And traces the hard line of rain across the sky,
Marking the place where even the restless wake
From a sleep they so patiently waited for.
Old pavement pulls the street through years
Times of sand tossing curly haired kids
In dried grass: the habit of neglected August,
Swallowing all of late winter’s craving
Into dusty, cob-webbed corners,
Missed by heaven, skipped by hell –
Once sharp places, long gone stale.
.
Pale skies cast through wrinkled gauze,
Illumed with worried skin,
Pallor of a re-ran TV set,
Where smoke lingers,
Coffee goes warm, then sour
And a chorus of days hangs in the hour.
.
Tattered screen, leaning fence –
That hard line parting the space of time
From the washed light in a dusty corner,
Speaking truth, three doors down,
Along a street, at the edge of town.
Usually, it never starts with a dream
The dream meticulously sculpted into an expectation
So perfect that the cries of ecstasy roar along the river
Erasing any hope of stillness that might have been there
Had nothing ever been imagined in the first place.
.
Hmmmph
.
Usually it never starts with that first sight
That look into perfection that never was dreamt any better
Better than last time, but only to be washed away
With enthusiasm misplaced and gone awry
In manic flailings trying to capture it all in one fell swoop.
.
Ohhhhh
.
Sometimes, admittedly, it might start with a splash of apathy
Because it has to be done and here we are
And along the way it becomes the next dream
And the perfection reveals itself in little debates
Comparing this to that and wondering if this is even better.
.
Oooooohhhhh
.
Always, though, a script unfolds, eluding time’s wicked arrow
Bathed in a moment eluding any grasp of perfection
Surrounded by silent calls and responses each asking nothing
Together, creating the pulsing song of a mid-winter river.
The asbestos shingle fell off long ago,
Along the wall in front,
Where the living room hides behind closed curtains.
She won’t recall when or where it even went.
.
The yard, larger than most,
Along this back street of small homes
And odd-sized yards.
Is only slightly overgrown,
In the way that chores
sneak past habit,
To sporadic neglect.
.
Ringed in a low fence,
That once kept a dog in,
Or a playing child safe from harm.
.
Simple things like that, they once had,
Or at least dreamed of.
.
But years of cigarettes and drink,
Took him
From her,
In a long night of oblivion.
.
Happily-ever-after into eternity
Came to an end,
Suddenly.
.
But she stopped crying long ago.
.
The days now might looked rehearsed,
Her shift at the grocery store,
Unchanged for the last three years.
.
There was the time her brother came out
And the fellow down the street,
Who would call from time to time,
Their appearances so long ago,
But seeming like yesterday.
In a place where time keeps pace
With the falling of an asbestos shingle
From the living room wall.
.
She rarely looks me in the eye,
Like she did then,
Pulling off a cigarette,
While the sun casts crimson
Across a high cloud deck
With a single opening out east,
Where she imagines great blue winged dragons
Will fly in,
And dance around the yard.
That winter, they fought tooth and nail
Over how best to prune the apple tree.
Dad: sure in his years, like the tree
Perhaps their best years gone by
Or the most celebrated to come.
.
And, Son: the new idea,
Like newfound loves,
Light, lively and vigorous.
.
Tree: wind worn, deer scraped
And broken long ago,
Now crooked like time
In places where things move little,
To those who have the patience to see.
.
Picture Dad: looming over wrinkled pewter skies
Tall on the visions he nurtured long ago,
While the long angles of his fingers,
Turned and knuckled, like the branches,
Tracing the grand plans he still holds,
Across a chill February wind.
.
And Son: bright, leafy shade tree
For long naps in summer sun,
While his places, perhaps dormant still,
Waiting for Spring warmth
Like the budded branch,
To be rattled and tested on the next stormy wind.
In other years,
Those times, now hastily sealed in envelopes,
Memories of those days of rain:
An incessant November after a scorched Halloween,
Or cold February rain, broken by snow,
Gusting loud and clear that afternoon,
In another damp celebration,
To the beat of scowling wind and staccato raindrops.
.
Winter’s pulse traced across every window.
.
Then, rivers of emerald velvet,
Concealing cobbled dreams,
The electricity of fish,
And the hard lines of trees
Against soft winter skies.
.
We dreamed of things outside us.
.
Now, we wake in the crisp, tingling night
Like the sound of a pin snapping,
Where it lingers on the cold edge of dawn
And stretches under the long fetch of winter sun.
.
Summer’s long pause distilled and bare.
.
These days trudge on,
Held fast under shadowy chill
Where summer escaped,
As we wonder if it ever left.
.
We will remember this time.
The pace of mornings might seem slow,
Or pass quickly,
It does not matter if the river is loud,
Or passing out the soft gestures of frog water
Gone chilled and clear.
.
So that rivers might fill.
.
Right when morning comes to light,
that’s when the sun,
In a desperate attempt to push into the day
Fails, falling back into the clutch of evening,
Or morning,
Depending on the pace of it all.
.
Autumn now turned cold and brief.
.
Call it empty, quiet or lonely,
Dictated, in part, by the light
Pinning afternoon into one single moment
Of a day that cannot linger here.
.
Summer’s sway long gone.
.
Each time, like the call home
From a forgotten lover never met:
This time of shadowed rock,
And snowy alcoves,
We come here again.
.
Waiting for the rain.
She starts slowly,
Her hands, circling gestures, hinting to far off places:
Familiar,
In the way that long gone memories suddenly reappear,
New and old,
As the eyes of a newborn might tell.
.
Her story moves,
Along the lines of his sweaty brow:
Furrows of dusty habits, streaked and stale.
And his face: a worn vista of hope,
A shell of the dances they once rehearsed.
.
She conjures over sagging eyes,
Rising to bright skies:
That one window they have left,
Where thirst and promise mingle
On that one day the afternoon light hangs,
Suddenly, still and unmoving.
.
Their separation: a restless wait,
But marked with patience,
As he turns, fetching verses from a box of years,
Stepping on the one plank, long gone warped and dry,
Creaking, and sounding the first note
Of a long song they will sing once again.
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.
Our ideals, then, were liquored with blackberries,
That would form the evening air,
Into a sweet, heavy stillness.
.
Your dappled voice was almost hidden
Along the waters edge, and in the eddies
Your hair would drape over the smooth curve of rock,
While your eyes reflected the far off storms.
.
The banter of our dreams then:
You following the worn path of bears,
Guiding us over the barbed wire,
And crossing into our place.
.
There you whispered raindrops into my ears,
And I cobbled together water stories.
Those were dreams we had then,
Savored,
And marked in the hollows of sand
Filling the long, easy spaces between stones.
.
I don’t remember the pear tree then,
Why didn’t we reach up it’s long trunk,
Pruned in the year of bears,
Clothed in glistening leaves of poison oak,
And held fast by thorns?
…
Where I go now there is a tree,
It grows tall and straight, and,
In some years, hangs heavy with fruit.
I sit on the stories between the sand,
Biting down into the almost ripe memories
Of the love we shared, and still lingers
In the spaces between stone and water.
.
Nearly full and sweet,
Juices rolling off the stone,
Soaking into the sand, like our tears:
Watered by the storms that you dreamed of then.
Shaken Rain 