Reedy Creek Drive, Late Spring

this morning the air is thick with rain.

the irises bow their violet heads

and the maples graze the earth with heavy arms

as though bearing the weight of the water

before it falls.

this old brick house was not always so quiet.

not so many years ago, there was a clockmaker and his wife

at this kitchen table, two cats at their feet

lapping milk from porcelain bowls.

and there was me, lone granddaughter,

tearing through toaster waffles with my baby teeth

while the squirrels muddied their feet in the flower beds

just beyond the window.

i took my sweet, syrupy time

for the possibility that the freckled fawn

might come padding out from the edge of the woods

before i finished my breakfast.

never did i step off that porch

without an ice cream sandwich in my belly

and a fistful of grape hyacinths.

yes, this was a home, once.

today, though

the house feels more like the hollowed out skin of an orange.

the grandfather clock’s irregular chime

settles over my family like ashes,

everything an admonition of time’s unwavering hand:

an expired bag of sugar yellowing in the cabinet,

mom making the bed in her childhood room,

a circular refrigerator magnet reading

Ride to End Alzheimer’s, 2023.

together we wrap ourselves with the promise of paradise

as with a quilt, hold our breath at the kitchen window

like children, waiting for the white undertail of the deer

to pierce the fog.

one day we believe we will wait no more.

one day the grandfather clock will again chime

and the milky body of the doe will descend her hill

with heaven on her back;

in that golden hour the irises will lift their heads

and the maples will clap their hands

and from every shadowed valley of every mountain

there will be music

for the long-awaited marriage of the dust to its Designer.

until then, we wait,

some days with our knees in the soil,

others with our noses pressed against the cold glass,

every memory clutched to our chests

as the blue song of the rain

crescendos all around.