Remembering

 In a dream I met one of my college roommates, a German exchange student, on a beach. I pointed inquisitively at his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “On the Baltic Sea, they’re called pflip-pflops.”

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

And in the end ​it’s not the years in your life that count; it’s the life in your years.

—Abraham Lincoln

light sky of a july evening

half a lifetime later

appreciating afresh

a sweet face

glowing, intelligent,

beautiful eyes

and a dancing heart

remembering

not merely the evening

but the enveloping magic

of an evening

not even knowing

aught of future days

and evenings

of bridges

of islands

of the many fingers

of Neva as she

tirelessly seeks

the Finnish gulf

having as yet

not the least idea

of the riches

of the grandeur

into which my life

would be born anew

just a stranger

trying to purchase train fare

not home

but to the place

then serving as home

and thinking on the lines of

Is that my heart

resting at such ease

in your fair hands?

decades later

me in a lawn chair

at a concert in a park

appreciating afresh

just how great a chance

she took on me

and what was I

and now a much older me

a much older me

who dawdled so

I didn’t finish writing this

until august.

“ white nights” 4.viii.25