Night

He let the door swing gently open in front of him, the screen slightly protesting on its old hinges as he stepped out onto the porch.  The frogs were in full throat, the fireflies alighting across the deep dark lawn and a few moths stirred and danced against the porch light.

He held a cigar in his right hand to stave off the mosquitos and in his left hand was a double pour of bourbon with no ice to dampen the taste.

Right now she was in a perfectly pressurized airplane hurtling across the Atlantic, much closer to the stars then he was, her arc away from him, just a red-blinking streamlined piece of metal flying at 38,000 feet above a coal black ocean.  He imagined she was sleeping.

He hoped she was, pulling a sip from his drink and then inhaling a bit of the cigar to keep the bugs away.

Somewhere Pandora was playing...a Chris Botti radio station that he had hoped she would like...she had enjoyed one song but he wasn't ready to declare victory yet.

Instead he just watched the high contrails of blinking lights above him, wondering where the people were flying.  Heading away.

He enjoyed this time of the evening, when it was relatively still...his mind a calm room...a thought of her could walk in like somebody exiting a shower in a towel...a pleasant disruption.  A surprise.  Strolling languidly around, he narrowed his thoughts to just such an image...just murmuring of conversations...nothing heavy.  All light.

He tried to think about how far away she was from him, the speed of the airplane and the curvature of the earth and realized the math was too hard.  Super far was where he landed on an answer.  He wondered if she could see outside or if it was jet black.  

Probably sleeping he hoped again.

He returned to the thought of her walking around in his mind again and closed his eyes, the frogs and the crickets and the trumpet music soothing him as his cigar gently glared orange and his bourbon swirled brown in his glass, a color of her eyes and yet another reminder of her on this perfect summer night.

Passeggiata...a little walk

He didn't know how to speak Italian, but it was on his list of amazing things still left to do.  He had been there before, and was familiar with the concept of around sunset when young lovers would walk and converse...early stage romance when the jousting was designed to get to know one another, a laugh, a slight glance of a hand against a hand, the close-in streets purposefully pushing them together.

He remembered the scent of an Italian evening, the light humidity and the slight air of garlic and tomatoes and the lingering glaze of forever...the streets and the buildings seemed to have been there forever, so long ago that it was mind-numbing to consider.  It wasn't an old smell...rather, it was like the scent of a bookstore attic, where time passed so very slowly and we were just passers-by.

He remembered the noise from an Italian evening, the din of silverware against plates, the clank of glasses raised in toasts, the murmuring...the dialogue and the debate.  Italians gesticulated with their hands as they punctuated the evening air with emphasis...there was passion in the discussion, both sides weighing in...sometimes quietly, sometimes and more often than not loudly.  But mostly the echo of supper and food being shared, and conversation flowing as non-stop as the liquor in the glasses.

He remembered seeing the lovers, the ones slow walking, pausing often...mostly to turn and full-face each other.  The older couples walked beside each other, talking and barely turning...but the new loves were unable to glance at each other sideways...they had to turn and see the fullness of the other, the full-throated glimpse of somebody in front of them in an evening...blessed to be in this street, at this time, beneath a sky mottling in an evening.

The world was speeding by them, on Vespas and bicycles and activities and colors...the internet was pulsating in their pockets and reminding them of tomorrow's efforts and the weather and the scores in sports.  But in this street, this square thousands of years old they held a brief stare that felt like only a moment but mirrored a billion emotions bottled up from many years ago.

The ice in his glass was melting, the condensation wet and seeping off his drink and onto the table.  He wasn't in Italy.

But he thought about the full-face turn and the view of her and he was reminded of all those things that had been bottled up inside of him...not for one thousand years, but definitely feeling like something quite close to that.

Piers and Lighthouses

There are times that I am unmoored, adrift and stolen by some tides, lunar or otherwise that nudge around the days...around the nights in a blackened evening with very little shapes to guide me towards a horizon.

You blink at me like some far off lighthouse...the quick flash in an evening that I may miss if not looking carefully.

I have been in the rain at sea, when the water matches the color of the sky and the drops and it blends and obscures.  It hides and there is no land and it is hard to see a horizon at all.

I have been in the rain on a street, a sudden gust that has captured us unaware, and your hair slick wet and darkening and your eyes guiding me across to safety, a place to find cover.

I find that if I can be tied against you with some salt-laden ropes and some fine sailor's knot that I can survive any storm, be buffeted against by the most tropical depressions...that you still me with your hand and you ground me in a smile.

Lighthouses were built to warn, to stave off the approach and prevent being grounded up the rocks.  Your lighthouse eyes are beacons however, inviting and asking to come closer.

I pull in the water to drift your way, to glide or sail or paddle...to have you bring me in and let me sidle up and find my haven.