Across the Great Expanse

Across the Great Expanse

I stood on the steps and gazed across the
great expanse stretched from yawning valleys
to sheltered coves. The complexities sent me
spinning. I’ve had days when all I do is
remember people 50 years ago whose names
I once spoke out loud. I watched you laugh
dozens of times from corner to corner dodging
the looks of thawing foothills. We followed them
there
and hiked the slopes like we were as harmless
as we looked.
We cheered the occasional thunderstorms that
scattered us across the landscape. We counted the
seconds between flash and boom and knew they were
getting closer as hair stuck to our heads dripping rain
from our faces to our shoulders.
We slid down the fall line, mud escorting us to
the flattened overviews where we wondered why
the cows didn’t follow our downward adventure.

What I miss is the bliss that rises from the thought
of one simple day acting like a child who wants to be
an adult. The sweet adolescence when everything mattered
but nothing was sacred. The time of our lives when
we treated scat and the blues and rock and jazz like
parts of a whole we imbibed like wine.

What I miss are conversations till midnight, slightly
tipsy;
just enough to make the truth come out. And we
dabbled in open-source voices and sounded out our
serious vowels as if they were jokes looking for a
punch line. I miss talking with you and thinking we
knew everything about what was to come.

Shall we meet up at the park where our kites
would fly above us, and where salamanders soaked
in the sun on the banks of the stream? I’ll meet you there,
these many years later, and see if we can recreate the
scenes we once shared without fear, sharing them like
warm sun that begs our hearts open fully and unafraid
to laugh at how silly we are at these late days of our lives.