gazebo (turning 60)

There’s a grey mahogany moon coming up on the side where the sun is from. My mind is dancing to so many yesterdays, mellowed by the light of memory, and enshrined in its tomb.

The wet earth gives off its smell- of patience, of hope. I taste it in my nose as I lick my lips hoping to sense its notes.

But the dirt that I’m walking on has no history- it’s too easily washed away to be true. I keep walking till I’m in the middle of town, standing in the same shop where years ago, we stopped to get film before going to the church.

Across the way there’s a lonely gazebo where we once danced- where I took your hand, not for the first time, but the one that mattered less. Now I’m standing next to the gazebo, shadows forming as people walk to and fro. Their shadows are almost deafening- like a heard of cats in your way, when all you long for is a simple memory that may decay.

In the shadows I hear alternate lies, the ones we live by, and the ones we survive. In the gazebo, I can almost hear music playing, a slow waltz, only slightly out of time. Next to the gazebo, I tap my foot, to the ground, to keep my heart in time.

That’s when you appear, though I’m not altogether sure if you’re still real. You walk by, and I make no attempt to break your stride.