35 (2013)

Turning into familiar lanes in the gloaming

Your home is where you’ve made it:

The porch, the living room, the study

Are your beating  heart.

Draw back the curtains for a last look at the dusk

And close them now, for the evening,

Settle down into the interior, looking in.

Your friends at school are far away,

Each in his own space,

A web of his own making,

They lived next door, but not any more

And each has followed a path,

Closed and opened, here or there, a door

But never quite the same.

You lie back and watch the rain

Pattering on the window glass

Turned one to Dvorak, one to Duran Duran,

The echoes are far away,

You listen to the familiar notes

And sometimes can think yourself back

But know, if you ever needed to ask

That this is all there is,

The “why”s and “how”s and “what-if”s have no place.

Tomorrow you must awaken here again

This life, this journey is yours alone

And you cannot be relieved before it is time.