To process the unavoidable
in the best spirit possible,
in light of all that cannot be
so easily let go.
Childhood landmarks
for so long enclosed and tended,
like a terraced garden
in the yard that grows smaller
as you grow older
and the outside world leans closer and closer.
The oak trees that stood watch and held hawks,
were helplessly felled by the years to come.
Will there be any left to land
when houses pass hands
and open space becomes a commodity?
Progress fails to mention the casualties
of feathers and roots beneath tire marks
when expansion becomes Walmarts
on the outskirts of bulldozer scars.
What will become of our own shangri-la?
In my mind undisturbed,
the backdrop of table and rock stack
forms the rough hewn first layer of the terrace,
preserved there in this parallel existence,
weighted against the swirling impermanence
that moves in like a storm.
In years to come who will sit on the porch
just to smell the rain,
relieved that the parched earth will drink again?
Will subsequent visits find the inevitable weeds and overgrown grass
where dahlias once passed summers between the fences?
Will they still enclose all of the references
when obscured by ivy and choked with vine?
All the memories like scattered leaves
that the wind interweaves with the present,
gather at the base of the hill in a sodden pile
with no one to reconcile.
There remains some vivid colors.
My grandfather in his red sweater
that matches his glass of wine,
sitting beneath caps,
with hands folded permanently at that table in time.
Where are the kids of the neighborhood,
who made strongholds of foundations
and built forts by the old pine?
Who climbed fences with ease,
knowing every inch of these quarters.
They probably have their own sons and daughters,
strung out on screens,
did they sacrifice their sense of adventure
to growing older in the American dream?
I listen for the voices of kids playing outside.
Will there be any left to call in by streetlight?
Any dog racing up the hill first freed from the leash?
Whatever light is left can only emphasize
the emptiness of dead end streets,
shadows filling in the contours of rooms
where once paintings lined walls
to distinguish the decades,
extinguished as darkness falls.
I can still hear the sound of our footsteps on the creaking stair,
the cacophony of our lives behind the walls of Evelyn,
where our voices and movements have settled in
like a barely audible whisper beneath the passage of time.
I can still make a painting of memory
to temper my mind
into distinguishing all these changes
from what will endure.
yakskinpocketnotes 