The Future Beckons
North Buffalo
This journey isn’t only about gaining things
And freedom.
I’m going to lose things, too.
Just what am I willing
To give up
Not knowing
What I will get?
Am I willing to lose
The warm, pink evenings
With melon-colored clouds
And cotton-candy-blue skies?
The likes of which I will never see again
Because each evening
Is its own beauty.
What will I get
If every day
Is no longer
Exactly the same?
All I can do
Is walk to enjoy these nights.
Maybe in the new life
I will be able to enjoy them
More slowly
And peacefully.
Follow the woman in the red hat
Oh god, is she MAGA?
Her pace is
Infuriatingly
Slow.
Pass the linden
Pass the maple
Pass the tree I may have been able to name
One week before
Those narrow pointed leaves
Mock me
Dammit
I can’t remember your name
Pass the oak.
Thank you, oak.
I know you.
She gets ahead
As I am distracted
With my trees
On this pink evening
Whose clouds are now
A faint gray
With a splash of electric pink
That will last mere moments more
And here I am
Tapping this out on my phone
Before a Walgreens parking lot.
I cross the border
And the majesty vanishes.
Toilet paper and laundry detergent on sale
Orange hoodies and vitamin D.
I’m willing to give this up
Probably
For fields of wildflowers
And creeks coursing through forests.
Yes I’m picking up,
Yes my address changed
It’s changing again soon so you don’t need to bother
I say
To the woman behind the plexiglass barrier.
I let fear grip me for a moment
As I wait for the price to appear.
Much love to the American healthcare system,
Am I right?
$6.97!
Cheapest prescription ever
I say to her
In my moment that feels like a victory
And pay with my Apple Watch.
She comments on the marvels of its technology
And we talk closing the rings for a moment.
Only because I’ve been tapping this out
The whole time
Does this moment seem special
And important.
I step out into
A now gray-blue night
That smells like city
And fried food.
Do I miss cities proper?
I gave those up
To be where I am now
And I kept on living
Just filled with
Even more memories
That I never let myself exist into
Just like I’m not letting myself sink into
The rings of the August cicadas
The first time I’ve heard them
Or at least noticed them
This summer
And the barks of a dog and their human
Apparently
The future beckons
On this warm, dark night
Now lit by yellow street lamps
With guest appearances by Catbird in a butterfly bush.
Darker,
Darker still.
Quieter,
Quieter still.
I look up
And am surprised by the appearance
Of a Lutheran church.
Lost for a moment.
How did I end up here, exactly?
I took yoga a few yoga classes there
All those years ago.
So distant it seems
Now.
My footsteps tap the pavement
Tap the sidewalk
As my thumb
Pokes a screen
And there goes
My attention.
Watched over by a hazy
Sliver of a silver moon
I realize
I can go for more walks like this
In the new life
The new climates
Will afford me such pleasures
In exchange for the familiar
For almost everything I know
Is it a fair trade?
Who can ever know?