Happiness and Sorrow
The days pass so fast.
Does it ever slow down? Time IS relative; to what I don’t know.
The calendar pages, at first saved, a few journalized
Now torn and trashed monthly – more blank days with each passing year.
The entries in my weather-log, now seem few and far between
That was me, marking my time by such atmospheric ways…
The air above my days forms and re-forms -- the clouds of time come and go;
Setting forth each morning to sail my Florida skies,
They set and die with evening – sometimes in soft swirls & wisps of fading pastels
The dry days, the rain days, the cloudless and clouded;
So I, the weather-watcher, should well know the inevitability and wisdom
of ever-changing change….
Something still pulls deep, plucking on my heartstrings-
The transience of it all…
I struggle to hold a moment. Or let it go and know it for
Nothing more than a shuttle to salvation,
(the) A train on its way to Your Country and these days,
Like so many window frames of a countryside flashing by -
Then before I'm born, I surely die.
Images, like echoes fading, the year's “Special Moments”
Remembered, then (seemingly) forgotten, re-surfacing for a minute.
And I, rushing to etch them in some solid-frame of words or thought
Before they’re gone or race off the edge of the year uncaught -
The laughter and wonder;
We marched, rolling like thunder
through our Florida days of endless summer,
OF TOGETHERNESS OBLIVIOUS
We happy but not necessarily aware,
Sharing whatever it was we could share.
Each day little intimacies, creatures simple as we could understand:
at dawn.... silent observation of life awakening – me with my tea, you squatting on the garage pavement, staring, sniffing (if only you could still hear)
at dusk.... stars blinking in, one by one, the “Seabreeze in G” filtering in, softly ( relief from the dry, hot Spring… And you: squatting again, head poking above wild weeds – or, still struggling to follow me down
the rough drive- the twilight walks on the track (not making it lately)…
And in all our little meeting times throughout the day (Togetherness oblivious).
The morning greeting (you “pawed” me as I tumbled by your perch – to make that tea) - The evening walk (I know why you couldn’t make it of late)
The small talk and the nonsense: mostly one-sided ramblings,
but you used to chime in, in your own way and vocabulary…
But most of all, one thing other friends like you never had:
You did look me in the eyes - and really did smile into mine as I patted your head (Was it so hard for you to do of late?) Now it’s over (here) Gone…
and I remember:
We - Together, OBLIVIOUS - Relative to a fateful day fast approaching....
(Too fast)
For: Looky (short for Look-a-Like) my 17 year companion cat> September 7, 1991 - April 29th, 2008