And shining in the green field
As though they are just-painted models
In someone’s miniature world,
Set just
So
as
We fly down 577 while
Sun and rain leapfrog over each other,
Empty houses, fallow fields,
A woman pulling weeds
In a rectangular patch
Reclaimed from the wild,
Destined for the wild
In 40 years
Will I believe, bent and addled, alone and lost
that we stood healthy and hale
This mid-summer’s day on the golf course
While our handsome men teed off,
Tall and strong,
Our children swam, beautiful and shining
Like mythical Greeks
That we bantered and swore at our terrible shots,
Cheered the unbelievable putts, giving high fives,
Flirting because we were not yet old and
Could still do with possibility, secure
In our marriages, the present that was
Ripped wide open for us to take
Will I believe, contained to a tiny room with peeling paint
That money flowed like a river
Without noticing it,
Wine and dog food, iced tea and t-shirts,
Flip flops, coffee, huge boxes of frozen hamburgers
Golf carts and scotch, sweet corn, tenderloin,
Gas and books from the airport
That the river ran clear,
Herons flapping at the shore as in Yeats’ day,
That porcupines bent the trees, bald eagles
Sewed an invisible thread from pine to pine to unlucky fish to shore
That once a fawn swam in front of my kayak to the opposite shore
While white water lilies smelling of honey
Spread pedaled constellations across the surface of the water
That we lived in peace?
Will I touch my white hair,
Will I take Eliot’s peach and descend his stair,
Leaning on a cane, and say “my stars!”
Will I see that I was blessed beyond reason, beyond what I was due,
That He let me carry on this life without interference while
A spinneret of belief stretched from the stars to my hand,
Enough to hold me but not prevent me
From tangling with the world.
Will I pull a shawl around my shoulders and
Remember how I sat by the fire and listened
To the soporific rain that ended the game on the 8th hole,
Rain after a drought like crazy grace, like baptism, like
Freedom with abandon, like an invitation from the universe
To a party that’s been going on all along, but you didn’t know
Will I adjust my glasses with arthritic hands and
Remember this life
Think just how fast it has all gone,
That I have just been alive for a breath,
The time it takes to awaken and think your first thought,
And about to go into Dylan’s good night,
Or will the intervening years
Reap pain and loss from seeds earlier sown
And will I say
I can’t recall that
I can’t recall that at all.
Halfway North 