On that Hill
We stood on that hill
decades ago
surrounded
by oaks
tree language
intimate
embracing wind
warm
but that night
has gone
to where we
keep our
pressed flowers,
to lots,
or closets,
old haunts,
garages,
memories fading
to dim colors,
crushed crumbs,
random bits.
and even
the real places,
when we visit,
have grown partial,
missing pieces,
vague,
past recall...
place and self
both at once
ephemeral
and when we
claim no more
to know these
residues of
things,
or how they
stand for us,
the very
fields and forests,
homes,
the sidewalks, streets,
and lawns
will all be bare and new again--
as swept of us
as we of them
