Where the Light May End
I have traveled so deeply through the temporal spell
that so much of the day
has devolved into remembering.
In my seventh decade,
the path toward tomorrow seems disappearing
and I cannot tell where the light may end.
Impulses to share thoughts and feelings
still ascend.
Yet, so many of the once-smiling listeners
have become my precious memory-beings,
the denizens of empty rooms
that once were melodized by their voices.
So, it is I who smiles in the solitude,
for this air is not ungifted.
Its deep treasures can be recalled and refelt t
hrough memory’s special transporting.
The cycle of life has done what it should,
journeying with me as my companion.
It is another fine day on Planet Earth
and I know this way is good.
If It Were Spring
If it were spring and I were young,
I would smile down, toward my busy hands,
as I softened the leather of my outfielder’s glove,
stiff and dry from winter’s abeyance,
to be perfectly ready
to play center field for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The snow would have melted,
and I would be able to smell the grass
as it rerose with brand new blades
of could-come-true.
My sister would walk across lawns with me
to the bus stop to wait for Bus 6,
and we would wonder out loud
who this new “big deal” could be,
this guy called Elvis.
If it were spring and I were young,
we would talk all the way,
even though now she rests
far below the level of earth’s lawns,
below a lovely stone that bears her name and tenure.
If it were spring,
I would trek toward distant woods with my collie,
leaving behind developed plots of land
to sweep across wheat fields,
then step into shadows of the thickened trees
to dissolve into mysteries of wonder.
But, most of all,
I would aspire to find my love,
whom I had yet to meet,
even though I pleasurably glance to see her at this very moment,
far traveled from when she was only a dream.
I could wish it might go on and on, just like this;
I could wish that our bodies could fight off time’s wounds;
and I could wish that a smile might last forever—
if only it were spring and I were young.