Ahead Walks the Past

A summer evening’s walk around Greenwich Village was his habitual nightly vow.

His appearance was always that of someone listening to his thoughts,

even as his eyes would occasionally wander from sidewalk to overhead trees,

limbs bent over the crumbling curbside rendering them as steep staircases slowly descending with the passing night into tomorrow’s day.

A moment’s hesitation as uplifted eyelids reveal trembling leaves

like the memory of his once ageless mother realizing she too was getting old.

With the subtle wind, he perceives voices whispering high above the visible quiver

of tree-breaths as they gasp knowing such dampening air

foreshadows the early temperate winds of a distant storm building,

or perhaps a huge mouth wanting to burst forth with stifled laughter,

nature being the stealthy humorist it was at times.

Such were the discernments on this sultry evening’s stroll

amongst brownstones of the rich, fire-escape facades of the artists

and the inevitable newspaper-covered indigent

finding solace in a bodega’s storefront alcove.

Ahead, he would suddenly come upon a long-ago evening,

where he, by chance, met a happy heart

draped in a tie-dyed moo-moo, swaying innocently

across her bare feet, the hand-made sandals swinging from her fingertips

and golden unpinned hair cascading across her humid soaked shoulders.

On this night…

Such would jettison his melancholy

into hurried pursuit before recall disappeared

into the shadows of unfulfilled dreams.