Come away with me.  We turn right, fleeing the dusty sidewalk, bristling juniper, and snarling cars, never looking back.  Before us stands the weeping willow, dramatic and gnarled, black trunk weaving high into the air, festooned with insubstantial, mossy green strands.  Every journey starts with a single step, every walk begins here.  Run past the wood fences of my neighbors’ backyards, sneakers pounding on the cracked asphalt, shuffling in the broken leaves.  Perfect poppies pop up in clumps on the fringes, their lacy leaves waving in the wind like the pom poms of an enthusiastic cheerleader.  Jump up and catch your fingers on the eucalyptus; break the leaves and inhale the intoxicating scent of adventure.  That’s the feeling here we’re after. 

Do you miss

The wisteria tree

Its purple flowers

Hiding a mystery

Which made us long to run away

And live beneath: together

For forever and a day?

Spy red fish flying in the current, shoaling to hide from storks.  The cypresses form a ferny fence, and the lattices on the other side shatter light onto them, onto us.  Our shadows stretch long against the trees.  We are gods, dancing big and black and fearless.  Nothing can hold us back, nothing can make us hide from the blue sky streaked with cirrus.  One left turn, and the massive pines dwarf us, their dry orange needles blanketing the ground, their waxy green bracts slicing the sky above.  The oleander grows oily and we trod over the ominous, sickly, white petals matting the asphalt.  I’ve been told it’s poisonous, every brush against it a kiss of death.  Wait for cars and catch your breath. 

Do you miss


The gold afternoons

Spent watching long-legged deer

Under the daytime moon

Plastered like a sticker in the blue blue sky

Riches too free

For money to buy? 

Again we leave the screech of vehicles behind.  The wide-open sky of the last block disappears under claustrophobic live oaks, arching like the spires of an ancient cathedral over our heads, wallpapered with ivy.  Squirrels and birds leap from branch to branch, chirping the hymns of their savage symphonies.  Watch your step: don’t trip on the acorns, the lumps of asphalt, or the cracks in the path.  You might leave with a leaf caught in your hair, baptism by falling fronds.  Stretch out over the curve; maybe you can capture a reed in your fingertips.  Teeter on disaster; it is moments like these that make your blood flow faster. 

Do you miss

Those sweat-damp nights

Glittering with our eyes

Watching the lights

While we stood, lonely exile

Hand in hand, and

Dreamed a while?

Short and straight and sun-baked.  We blink against the wind and sun.  With our parched eyes, the gushing water suddenly looks like temptation, spilling and shining so close, but so far away.  That is, until we notice forgotten tennis balls and crumpled water bottles drifting along lazily; witness muddy scum on the surface of the water.  On the other side are fences painted a deep, salacious red.  Careful; the overripe wild plums rolling on the ground are gummy ruin.  They perennially stain the asphalt, leaving two perpetually embedded smears, the ruddy color of murder.  The tree at the end watches, a merciless guardian.  Its green blades flutter in the breeze, assuring us of sweet relief, but it lends not a hand to us.  Leave the blood behind.  To walk further on, we are inclined. 

Do you miss

The days when we

Skimmed over the dirt

Ran so carelessly

Hearing only our raucous laughs

And the pulsing whoosh

Of the blinding drafts? 

Onwards!  The trash can reeks, but the jasmine bushes growing over the chain-link fence make up for it.  Take a flower, bring it close.  It smells like Arabian nights, or at least, what I think they smell like.  That’s not the only scent you detect; white roses swing from the bushes ahead.  Exquisite beauties not too much larger than your thumb.  Walk on; hear the clatter of voices and plates, the smooth scales of a piano recording; the neighbors are celebrating.  Should we crash their party?  Yet nothing there could be more worth feasting the senses on than this trail.  And why would we need company, when we have the wind, the plants, the water, and each other?  Anything else would be but cheap treasure. 

Do you miss

The crunching leaves

The autumn wind

Singing breeze

That tossed our hair awry

And whispered

“Goodbye”?

Stop by the maple tree and scan the ground.  Pick up the wing seeds, drop them, watch them twirl like ballet dancers.  The yellow clover blossoms toss their pretty yellow heads, curtsying and bowing for us.  Do you hear that sound?  A coarse choir splashes into the creek, sending beads of water onto the banks.  Serenaded by quavering quacks, we tramp over the graffiti, unreadable after weathering months of sun and rain and wind.  But, we know what they say.  We’ve come here every day; we watched their slow decay.  Leaving it behind, we walk away. 

Do you miss

When our cheeks blossomed

Red in the icy wind

And our eyes stung with the unfathomed

Clarity of the sobbing sky

Transparent as the tears

We tried to hide? 

Green coins surge and swim in the zephyrs caressing the countless fortunes flickering over our heads.  Don’t dare covet; they belong to the trees.  What wealth could you want, when you, polished by light, stand on a path gilded with sun?  And now we come to a choice, a fork.  Left or right?  It’s yours to choose; they rejoin further on anyway.  Wheat-gold grass fills the fields; misshapen oak trees perch, deformed with plump galls.  Soon we come upon a cracked tree stump, blocky and solid, the first step on the stairway to heaven.  Leap on the stump, feel the thud of your sneakers against the aged wood, turn and look toward home.  Here you can see the future, here you can see the past, reflecting like the endless sky, sparkling in your shining eyes.  Someday, we’ll be back here, you and I.  By then we’ll know the meaning of forever, forever and a day.  And yet, we’ll never be the same as we were today.  Oh, don’t you worry, just put one foot in front of the other, never look back, cast your eyes forever to the future, and walk on to destiny.  Come away with me.

Do you miss those days

Those fantastical nights

I once tired of

Those wondrous sights

I once found humdrum

Those times we can never return to

Those times that we came from

Do you miss          

Me?