Not sure yet, I slowly turn to the sound of a familiar voice.
Yours maybe?
It has been three years since the social dance of co-workers and mingling - inevitable small talk.
Three years ago, this was a not so foreign path.
Is it too much all at once?
These long office corridors can be home
versus the long, dreadful, hours spent at home
the winter months are not the worst - June, July and August are the culprits.
They drag - like an old train chugging past.
Whistling in the wind.
My life is not a rundown railroad train.
dodging my own shadow, I spent what seemed like lifetimes, watching the sun slouch across the carpet.
Seated at a round table, they laugh in the crowded cafe.
Alert yet apart, I will blend in like a chameleon, like a flower in a vase I will arrange myself to bend with my fellow flowers.
We will all bloom and it will all be glorious.
Rolling bodies,
Grass stained jeans
And shouts, yips, and nips
Punctuate the air
As the child and puppy
Roll in the grass of the yard.
Squirt gun fights,
An unintentional bath,
Painted with frivolity
and water as the
Sound of laughter
And playful taunts,
Fill the air around
The children who chase
And play oblivious
To the invisible moat
That repels the perils
Outside the yard.
It sits on the pantry shelf where it's always been
The old blue bread box made of tin
with faded white letters B R E A D stencil on
for some reason of it I am fond
It no longer stores loafs or buns
It now holds things forgotten
A dish towel whose pattern was pretty and fun
A rubber glove in case we found the other one
Some rubber bands and bread ties too
and don't forget that bottle of old wood glue
The timer that doesn't time
a baby spoon I think was mine
A candlestick and yellow lighter
A recipe for holiday apple cider
Old refrigerator magnets that don't stick
An half empty jar of Vicks
That old squirt gun that always leaked
A Tootsie Roll we forever keep
Why we keep the bread box I don't know
But I am glad it's there if just to show
some things other think are useless and old
are the treasured memories of us they hold
Water play.
Water play.
How do we play
By running and jumping through the water
Sprinkler as it goes around
While sitting on the ground.
Water play.
Water play
How do we play?
In the water hose with a nozzle that
Changes from a fine mist to a bold spray
That lands on our toes in a funny sort of way.
Water play.
Water play.
How do we play
On a slip and slide.
Oh! What a ride
On a piece of plastic through the grass we glide.
Water play.
Water Play.
How do we play
By getting wet with our squirt gun.
After which we dry in the sun.
Water play.
Water play.
How do we play?
There are so many ways.
Drop by on any given day.
You can join in the water fun and play.
As I pick through the cupboard and rattle each tin,
Was that a moist squeak? No, it couldn't have been.
Now I open the can as I'm preparing to savor,
the tortoise aroma and the four legged flavor.
Then I turn the can over and what's flying out?
" No! It can't be alive!": I start with a shout.
He's down in my soup, in his progeny's platter.
His beak might be sharp. My teeth start to chatter.
I turn for my spoon and prepare a good whack,
He pops up and spits his cold soup on my back.
I attempt to engage as I swirl through his space,
when he surfaces quick and spews goo in my face.
On and on, it played out with me banging and flailing.
I finally gave up on this squirt gun. I'm wailing!
Don't sneer or condemn me as one callow coward.
Didn't this happen once to a Stooge-Curley Howard?
Laying in a wicker basket
Are varied colored Easter eggs
Surrounded by milk chocolate
And jelly beans and root beer kegs.
Exploring closer you will see
Beneath the artificial grass:
Sidewalk chalk and marshmallow bees
A squirt gun and a movie pass.
You must keep searching deeper still
Until you find all that’s concealed:
Next you’ll find a treasury bill
And coupon for a Big Mac meal.
Now my little excavator
Have a very happy Easter.
I am the shadow of a cannonball.
I watch bees float from flower to flower,
While beyond the back of the shed
The good work of anyone awaits my attention.
Though--I know now one thing!
Twinkling into my orbit now,
The lost dog on the great plains,
The quivering flame beside the feverish man,
The surfaceless bottom,
Like squirt gun chases
I proclaim through a breeze:
If my brother's fiancee's son
Needs wispy and wild advice
This I will provide
As the shadow shifts past.
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