To a Time to Come                      (1-13-05)

A pasture full of green,

            though it be January's time,

            listlessly lays between the shoulders of two  broken ridges

That scratch the bloated bellies of the clouds gray with cold mist.

A split rail fence borders the creek that hurries

            over and around the rocks

            as it adventures to warmer lands.

Moss covers much of the old fence

Just as a five day old beard on the face of the old man

With his arthritic hands troubling to grasp the splitting maul.

Lifting his eyes from the task, he looks beyond....

            out to the fence, and remembers the slim, curly-girl brunette

            in her jeans and purple blouse.

She always looked up past the clouds,

While he just looked at the clouds and their stunning and artful forms.

That's a tear and not sweat as he thinks back to Senegal, India

            and six lively ones.

He smiles as he thinks of how she hated the cold

            and then frowns in perplexity

As he comes back to this January time

            and remembers that she's inside by the hearth

            sipping her Earl Grey.

She hates the cold; but she's here....

He never could grasp the fact that she loved him-even today.

His old mind still cannot clutch hold of that truth.

Still faithful.

Still loyal....

Grabbing an arm load of fire wood, he stumbles up the steps to her...

            It's the best he can do.

He knows he has failed her in his love

            When she asked to go south,

            by the beach toyed with by the Gulf waves...

And he hung his head and said he couldn't.

She doesn't rearrange the house like she used to....

What once frustrated him, he now misses.