The closest place to you

We would have never met on main St.

with it’s polished windows

and manicured trees, all lined up

vying for the cover spot on the next edition

of “America’s great small towns.”

At best, we might have bumped elbows,

exchanged “excuse me’s” and hurried along

from one café or bookstore to the next.

Thank God for Nye Road,

overgrown shrubs

and lawns mottled with browns.

How would I have seen your crimson hair

if it had been swallowed up

by a red clearance sign

decrying 50% off on all stock today?

I can imagine how much less I would be

if I had not seen your evergreen eyes

or mingled with spring time on your breath.

Even now, decades later

Main Street’s too polished, too white

with an air of condescension

and nothing warm to hold.

So, I choose to walk Nye Road instead

where fall leaves dress in your colors

and the faded tarmac

still echoes with your step.

Some place you haven’t been

I want to go some place new,

where the sidewalks don’t know you.

Some place you haven’t walked

with your fingers clasped in mine.

Some place where the roads

are not named “Nye”

and don’t all lead back to you.

I wonder, after all these years

if such a place exists?

For all I know, streets and boulevards

talk to highways and freeways

and maybe the occasional toll road too.

There might not be anywhere

that doesn’t come full circle to you.

Maybe I should stick to trails

and bike paths by the river?

I would,

except this morning

I saw a Robin

serenading another

and as they glanced in my direction

I swear, I thought I heard your name.

Passing Through  
 
I sat on a rock this afternoon 
in the middle of the river 
which is more like a creek these days. 
I sat with my bare feet in the water 
moss gathering around my ankles 
embracing me, like old friends will sometimes do. 
 
It’s been years since I sat here, 
but I needed somewhere familiar to go, 
somewhere that had no memory of you. 
I tried the beach, but each step I took 
recalled steps taken with you. 
I’ve never felt so out of place. 
 
I took a drive out to the park, 
certain that the children playing 
would wash away this cloud of gloom, 
but I only left remembering 
we had no tricycles or swing sets, 
it was one more thing we’d never do. 
 
So finally I just came here, 
someplace we’ve never been together 
but even here there’s traces of you. 
Autumn leaves,

the exact hue of your hair, 
grass the color of your eyes 
and wind as soft as your touch. 
 
There’s really nowhere to go, 
I won’t find some reminder of you, 
until I quit living in denial 
and face the cold hard truth, 
like the water racing by my legs 
you were only passing through. 

The only reason I come back

 

I always end up here-
though God knows
I've tried to stay away,
sometimes for half a decade
at a shot,
but eventually my feet
fall back on this same tarmac
that hasn't been re-paved in 30 years.

I used to think it was youth,
the thrill of mountains
and rivers waiting to be explored,
a need to commune with nature
that kept tugging at me,
pulling me back
to this town that rarely changes.

But it wasn't the sun
with it's cheek
pressed against the western skyline,
or cattails defying the wind
along the edge of the river,
or even a dark copse of trees
promising relief
from an un-relenting heat
that called me home.

It was, I guess, just knowing
that somewhere here
you'd be waiting
with your autumn hair
and spring green eyes.

That on these streets
and horse trails
I'd find your laughter,
your smile, and perhaps even
an echo of your sigh
still lingering
on a September breeze.

There really is
only one reason I come back.
It's the one place
you never leave.

Nothing in the world

I read your letter

this morning,

as I sat with my feet in the river,

still unable to answer it.

And if I did-

after nearly a decade,

would you remember the question

or even care?

I should have told you then

that I loved

the rivers and the mountains

more than you.

But if I had-

would we have had

those last three months

of laughter in the sun?

I still love

the mountains and the rivers,

and the western skyline

when the sun is bathing in the sea.

But not more than you these days.

They seem a little less

without your smile and freckled shoulders

contrasting up against them.

I should have lied a little better,

held out a decade longer,

and today it would be true.

There'd be nothing in the world,

that I loved more than you.