Revisitations
After a quarter century on the planet
(strangely geologic terms for this insect life)
and barely embarked among the rock people
of this commercial sea,
I return home for a month of family and scrapbooks.
On show for relations who,
hypnotized by numerical age and gossip,
extend respect like a cup of tea.
I slip comfortably into adolescence
as if it were an old Pendleton
hung in a closet when I left
some years back.
The cousins talk of children, cars, stock options;
I nod, and slip away
to run seven miles and think of
New Zealand, old loves, writing.
I marvel at the clippings, photographs,
certificates,
try to fit a memory to each and feel
the cumulative weight of all my history.
But the time has no heft;
my mind, filled with images,
yet feels light,
seeking the comforting burden of a past.