Slow Dancing the Past
by Odin Roark

Shadows of yesterday frozen
Even as high noon’s blazing heat
Seems never to pass

Fixed sturdy upon Nature’s ties
Once shiny rails
Hard driven spikes
Forward movement changed
In mind’s imploding delirium

From behind
Memoir nudges our sway
Reluctantly we swing
Along bedrock now exposed

Arresting our attention

Wildness carries forth endless existence
Prickly sumac and hobo milkweed
Bathe in the swirling dust of perpetuity
As a Monarch’s wings tuck
Taking refuge beneath rock
Where the snake’s watchful eye
Bids patience

All around

Admittance dictates
Real life’s Iron Horse long gone
Even though
Journey’s seduction
Fantasy
Dreams
Delusions
Remains always ahead
Waiting inside more transition tunnels

As youth walking the tracks
We saw the tunnel as mystery
Adventure beckoning
Threatening darkness
Where simple unease
Made exiting
Peeking light
At carving’s end

Time passed

Passageways continued
Beckoning our courage
Tracks of all sorts
Lead to choosing
Pondering
Decision
Endurance

Some of us ambled
Others jetted through
Even fewer stared
At risk’s pure darkness
Imagined finality

And then…

Some of us sat
Taking up the gentle amity
Of sumac’s brambly aliveness
Milkweed’s sharing promise
Monarch’s trusting beauty
The serpent’s eye winks

We smile at it all
As memories slow dance the past
Reflecting off our bygone rails