Sweeping Time Away

She is 98 and sweeps sweeps sweeps her patio away Every day for hours Arms wrapped around her broom Bride groom Lifted over the threshold of twigs and torment She cannot see nor hear much farther than her own reach For I wave to her from the yard next door Call out her name Hello Lilith But she doesn’t flinch From her private dance with her skinny man So I watch and hear her sweep The shades of morning light and graying night Into a tidy sense of order Pinecones here walnuts there locust shells Helicopter seeds and acorns All the living debris from trees Swish swish swish While I nap in my backyard Coming to love her little brushing and rustling of Earth’s stuff Like I would if I lived by the sea So on she sweeps Sweeps the ashes of her World War II husband Sweeps the advice from her many daughters Sweeps her trips to the vineyards of California Sweeps her classroom of second graders Sweeps that time she parachuted Sweeps her affair with The Senator Until one morning I noticed silence I went over and found her lying face up Her broom next to her Just out of reach She says “Oh my, Bob” to the clouds and my face “Could you lift me up and tell no one please?” Up we go arm in arm Hug each other for a very long time As the nuts and leaves shake wild and free In a snare of breeze Beneath Our tiny waltzing circle of feet.