The biggest surprise of them all,

Rows of sad houses

Lining rusty streets.

.

Where rain fails hopeful gardens

Again and again.

Every corner, trails of thigh deep woe

Stacks of mailboxes

Sheltering misery

From the grind of days

Mixed in hazy, medusa skies.

.

Each door playing the same story

Neighbors, but a chapter apart.

Street by street,

The same book written again and again,

Nail by nail.
.
A fading bumper sticker

Plays bold music,

Almost in hormony

With a tuneless flute,

From behind drawn curtains

And a window left open.

Late afternoon, University

Where the sun catches bleachers

Casting time across the tiniest slice of playing field.

A staccato “Hup! Hup!”

“Hup!” Of a frisbee scrimmage.

.

“Here!”

.

The hum of a campus in early summer,

Where the players’ cries, hoots and woots

Tick away a timeless place between the

Hourly bell toll.

.

On the seventh lap around the rubber track,

That echoing bell marks religion

Just in case we missed it.

.

A light breeze ruffles tree tops above the stadium

While down here, all is still

Just foot steps, slap of hand on frisbee,

sound of breeze in this still field,

Like a reminder of a world out there.

.

“No! No! Here!”

.

An easy time filled with gentle ripples

You know, the kind that form when

Memories, place, sound and light

Move together.

.

The kind that pull up poems

From that time I sat with her at the beach

And gently reached my arm out to hold her.

From then on, the distance between us grew.

It was the last time we felt the wind together.

.

Now,

Summer,

Rolling in enamel bliss

That will not wear off over a

sky shadowed, cast in vapor

Illumed by the fading light of an afternoon:

Like when Autumn became Spring

for just one day.

.

That was what we remembered

When we didn’t know that this kind of day

Not the faintest idea,

That today could be the richest of them all.

.

Maybe because it was the quietest.

Like I said:

Late afternoon summer.

The bell tolling another hour

Like some silly notion

That time might be slipping by.

“Ha!”

 

Her stories might go unheard over the sparkle in her eyes,

The sweeping gestures of her unfolding arms,

Or even the way she glances down

As if to gather another bit of grace.

.

The tale could be any old thing,

Mustered up from random memories,

Told in the plainest of ways.

.

But in her words;

Words that seem to catch the first morning sun,

Those rays that fall across the wooden table,

Simple, soft illuminations

Like a summer afternoon yawn,

Slipping into the slumberous, the sublime.

.

Her stories are of all things:

Big and small,

Near and far,

Hoped for and gotten.

.

Or maybe the words speak nothing,

While they bring life to everything around.

Late at night the wind finally stirs,

Raising tree branches to the window,

And against the lights of town,

Sends shadows dancing across the wall.

Friday night, like the dust settling,

Where the creak of the barroom door,

Opens to a home of ice cubes,

Laying around, melting,

Collecting the heat of the day.

.

The whiskey might be poured

Mixed with the yawn of summer,

Sprinkled with laughter that tests

The little scratches along the bar.

.

Sunset reaches out like a voice

Tapping at the one tiny window,

Peering in the creaking barroom door

With a crooked welcome mat,

Worn, and tired with lifetimes of possibilities

that will languish on that last light.

.

Then the crickets sing,

Like jukeboxes across the sagebrush flats,

As the last working street light,

The life of Main Street, goes dim.

.

That’s when the fightwater gets poured.

And the doors fly open, letting loose

A roar across the desert,

Spewing the sad love songs,

They hoped would be sung together.

.

Not long after,

The last ice cube clinks silently

Along the half empty glass,

Calling for more. While the buzz

of an old street light struggles to life,

and a lone cricket remembers the words.

It was just the turn of your head,

Like the fields where we ran as kids

Tall, through the rolling grass

Skipping, hollering, laughing

endless imaginings!

That was when Springtime never ended.

.

Now we start it off again, here,

like then. Your eyes, your hands

Immersed in the window’s view,

Across the fields, to where the hills rise up

Collecting it all into the little streams

Reflecting in the midday sun.

.

Humming, softly in the warmth of that day

When we opened doors for the first time.

And in came light and breeze and linens swaying,

Entwined in a caress that never stopped.

.

And just as you turn again,

The faint scent of you, lingering.

I never remembered, until now,

like the stream where the oak trees grow,

The tiny home over the hill,

We don’t have to know anything more.

.

Nobody told me it would be quite like this.

.

How was I to know all the questions,

You look away, I wonder,

All of that was answered,

A long time ago. Nothing more.

I didn’t have to.

.

As children, we could study the

Long swoop of a single flower petal,

Seeing the landscapes rise and fall.

.

And in the one moment,

Your sure glance weaving a simple thread

Of lush green garden into my heart.

.

It has been a long time, my love.

.

All those things happened, then.

Now we turn, move into the place

Where the light fades from an afternoon

Sitting in the still air of an early evening.

.

That was your hello.

The story plays out each time I crest the small hill

Especially in March with the first fresh winds.

That’s when this time is just like before

Any every past year at this time

Gets bundled up in this moment once again,

Somehow eluding time,

Or, strings those years together in one long now.

.

The truck rattles over the small hill,

While I still carry the sleep

That barely took hold last night.

One of those rare nights

The tossing and turning

Hoping to shake it off.

.

The thoughts coming as little sprouting flowers

Then roll over once more

To see them as festering memories

That won’t leave.

They come in on that breeze, maybe.

Just like last time.

.

That night the light rain dripped off the eave

Into the puddle by my window

Speaking in between all those thoughts

That can’t quite hear the steady rhythm outside.

.

Rolling down the hill, the day

Seeming like it could be the last

Feeling like maybe the first.

.

The day little routines go wrong,

Bringing a stutter step to the movements

In a day that rings in the last of that

Or ushers in the first of something.

.

This day rides on the hope of something,

This, or that, but really,

All the while,

The day just hovers in between.

Just like it always did.

It’s always just in between.

.

The early evening drive into town

The hum of the tires over the rough asphalt

Turning west,

Where the sun sprawls over the

rain clouds, painting a familiar picture

The colors announcing the last of the day

Or, maybe the first of something.

.

But never in between,

No idea of in between.

.

Like it just might be this,

One-more-time.

So that tomorrow might be the first or the last

Of something.

.

Yes, somehow, I skipped the in between

Coming over that hill this morning.

Forgot that it might be just like it always was

And always will be. In between.

Just barely,

In between.

Barely.