Something Caught My Eye

Something Caught My Eye

(“You gave me room when I was in distress.” Psalm 4:1b)

I nearly caught up with the day
that I
followed the fall line across the
East Bay hills
below Mount Diablo. I nearly saw the
place again
where play was more likely than
definitions constructed behind fenced-
in
yards.

But I locked the gate myself, I
guess;
I thought better of sitting in the sun while
a friend smiled
and admired my silly guitar chords on a late
afternoon.

I still can smell that sweet mown hay,
I still can see the way clouds looked like angels
and there was no one enforcing the time or place
where we could get lost
and walk the same circles as if they were the first.

These days I swear I may burst,
I may have rehearsed my answers far to well.
These moments my reach is diminished,
my sight locked and myopic. My opinions have changed
(I have fewer), but everything still looks the way it has
for decades now.

I would give anything to play on the hills again,
to sing the songs that teenagers sing. I would find
the open space and
never
let it lock me in again.

Something caught my eye. I am trying to remember it.
I am trying to say that someone gave me open space once,
and I no longer own it. And I catch my breath like I
catch the flu
and stay inside alone until the summer is ended.

To sum it up, I could dance if you played the tune we
both know
long enough.