Posted in Rituals

After the Rain

Posted on by tq1695

After the earthquake
the machinery
and war zone scale demolition
growth reclaimed itself,
trees and landscape escaped suburban detention
morphing
more feral than park – less forbidding than wilderness
catching and scattering the light –
a lacework of sun, shadow and river
popular with walkers
and hometown tourists.

A city of two halves – it was
the east, rubble
the west – barely touched.

They stopped and asked
was I from around here
what was it like – then – and now.

Mid-50’s both
the rings on their fingers shining, untarnished.
The whole while we talked
arms encircled each other’s waist
fingers played occasional sonatas on hips
eyes locking and lingering.
When we separated
they walked hand-in-hand.

I watched them leave.
Second time love
how erasing
how absolving
how redeeming
the chance to return to the fork
and take the other.

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.