Someday Hence

I think that perhaps someday I will look back on yesterday and see it differently.

Maybe then I will recall the purple spikes of Salvia. The Blue-Eyed Grass. The Four-Nerve Daisy with its yellow blossom leaning in the breeze. The Prairie Verbena with its blossom eaten by some bug or stolen by a bird.

Maybe then I will remember the smell of cedar at the magins of the woods. A kite flying high in the cloudless sky. The golden light of the setting sun grazing the treetops.

Maybe then I will even remember fondly that old dead oak. The one the grackles flock to. Cackle in. Its gnarly, fractal silhouette standing black against a sunset sky.

A golden time, it might seem someday hence.

But that is not how it felt yesterday.

10:07:13 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Too Young, Too Old

She sat on the bench, slippers on her feet, a backpack in her lap. She was young, too young to be waiting for a child at soccer practice. But she was too old to be a kid.

She sat on the bench far away from everyone else, seldom looking up. The hood of her jacket was pulled over her head. Her face was grim.

As I walked by, she looked up from the green sheets of stabled paper she was holding in her hands. Only briefly. To look at the dog, perhaps.

I smiled.

She looked back down.

We walked by, the dog pulling at the leash. And as we did, I turned to look back at her and saw what she was reading.

Guide for Pregnant Women

Too young, too old.

12:33:11 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []