Rumbling through the New England wood
Hand on the wheel, machine on the asphalt


Feeling the road
I squint to see the tracks and traces
Among the obscuring brambles of time
This curve, that jagged boulder, this once-stately homestead
Do I remember the way?


Tricks and illusions throw me off
A watery road (like a fountain)
A maze of impossible rock-wall twists and turns


And yet there you are


Arguing, explaining, expounding
Success on the first several points!
More trouble on the last two
A matter of public concern – and your physical chemistry fix
An academic in another life for sure


So comforting to find you
Such joy – you in your element
How can old friend and flesh be yet so fresh?
But vexing distance…
I want your unencumbered embrace
Your eyes twinkling for me


Too abruptly, the thread unravels


Feeling left to stand unsteadily as object falls away


No


I will coax the elements back to their assigned places
Neither my inertia nor your beloved entropy
Will have this day


Oblivion denied, I must here bottle this quicksilver of you
To keep so very close
With all the dearest of things


For this is all that remains