It Is a Coming Home With Tears

It is a coming home with tears to see
the broad gladness of the spreading maple leaves,
and down summer's long prospective sidewalk
listen for each memory of warmth and dusty lassitude.

To argue once again the merits of grape lollipops
while propping against our thighs balloon-tired bicycles,
feeling, like the strength of home's foundation,
the pitted shine of handlebars,
or trail like an anxious dog your brother in his competent pursuit
of airplanes wound to double tightness for their flight
or practice golfballs, light like mushrooms
blooming in the morning grass,
or even--thunderous event--
to roll without restraint down the tipping hill
through wild and fragrant grasses till you rest,
upgazing at the vastness of the cloudy, boiling sky so far above--
and suddenly feel reversal,
when you are pinned to the meadow ceiling looking down
at grey immensity all those miles below;

this, this, and all this would be sweet, no doubt.
But they are where we were back then,
and now it's for a different generation to create these memories
and enrich their driving busy days beyond
with sudden, unexpected recollection of
the murmurous intensity
of distant summer afternoons.

May 15 2009

So That When We Were Found

So that when we were found
all blazing in our particular human glory,
it was not after all a tangent to our foretold end
but its unexpected fulfillment,
and we gave thanks
understanding that in this instance as in others
we had lived by grace,
and were on sufferance heaven-bound.

Is it not an old refrain
to see how those like us are saved
without our knowing,
even wanting?
How like a human it always is
to be in spite of everything endowed
with God's dear favor; surely even He is torn
between great laughter and great tears.

May 5 2009