There were

New leaves on an old apple tree

When April broke.

.

There was

The neighbor’s hoarse laugh

Soured by beer and night,

Sharpening the point where morning

Turns the other way.

.

There are

Far off places where things are ahead

And different

Stirrings of home

In that way younger years

Can hold us in a spell.

This place,

Moored in silent copies

Of homes that fell forgotten

With new times and other stories.

.

It leans back from view,

Into dark brown shingles

Worn in sun and storm

Fallen behind and piled

Along old trees and

New Spring grass.

.

Stories of families

Broken and gone for healing,

With chit chat smiles of angst

Tossed across a gravel lot

Of broken high heels

And closet cigarettes.

.

All of it, staring across the way,

Escaping with the glances of drivers by.

We stop at the windows

Splashed in rowdy November

Squalls pushing against one another

Crowding us.

.

Time might come

Arriving on a speck

of afternoon sun.

More hope than seen.

 

We might dare this suddenly

windless place:

Up close, gone quiet

In a big empty pull.

.

There are sounds out there:

Up above and

Gone away from here.

This time,

We played baseball.

A Sunday routine sprawled under cool gray skies,

In the grassy corners between brick buildings.

Backway into downtown.

.

Effervescent afternoons,

Mingled in fantastic stories of love and laughter,

Pushing away the winds,

Stalking crosswalks

And small, empty places.

.

Company, sometimes, on the way to cheap drinks,

Rattle of ice,

And the rhythm of a creaking barroom door,

While glitter rains down from the sky.

Finally…

The hissss of light rain on river,

A day of this,

After the wind,

Settles summer’s score.

Now salmon stir

In the new, sweet water.

—- OR —-

DRAFT 2:

Act 1: Summer’s score,

Patiently settled by the wind.

Act 2: Soft skies,

And the long hiss of light rain,

On a late afternoon river.

Act 3: In the new, sweet water,

Salmon stir.