Poetry Friday: Porch

I wrote this poem for my husband, and with his permission I am sharing it with you, too.

 

Porch

Surprised by rain,
we scrambled for shelter.
The three of us collapsed
onto a wide midwestern porch,
leaving our bicycles behind on the grass.
We must have asked permission
from people in the house,
but I don’t remember that,
just how we lay back on the wooden floor,
heads on our helmets,
watching the rain fall and talking,
and then,
how all three of us fell asleep.

Now only two of us who were there
that afternoon thirty years ago
are still alive to remember,
since the third left this year,
not on his bicycle,
but still away,
past where we can follow him,
at least for now.

Perhaps some day only one
will carry this memory,
the exhaustion of our day of cycling,
that lulled us to sleep,
along with sound of the summer shower
that afternoon in Illinois,
the way the rain washed the steam from the air,
our voices, quiet and then gone,
and then the waking up,
getting back on the bicycles,
leaving behind that spot
where we’d likely never be again.

Each year we celebrate
accumulating more and more of these memories,
moments with others,
or moments only you and I know.
Another year of pedaling down the wet road,
legs working hard,
but refreshed after a nap,
leaving that porch
further and further behind,
until we can’t see it any more,
and it becomes part of our past.

Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

Mary Lee at A Year of Reading has today's roundup.