Going Back: A Lyric Poem

I walked past your house
but there was no one there.
The blinds on the windows, the curtains in the hall,
those things, and things like that,
they looked the same,
but there was no one there.
The trees have grown,
but the one behind the house,
the hickory tree, it’s gone,
and the limbs of the elms along the curb
reach over to make a ceiling: a crown of green
suppressing sound.

Those things, and things like that,
they look the same,
but there was no one there.

Those years were golden, and I remember
them, those other days, a summer breeze
within the leaves, the sound of cicadas
in the afternoon. I hear them still,
the call of the birds, the barking of a dog,
and the cheers and shouts
from a baseball game in the park nearby.
I hear them, and I remember,
those lemonade afternoons,
the swing on the porch,
the lyrical squeak of the old screen door,
and the smells from the bakery
that filled the humid air.

Those things, and things like that,
they were the same,
but there was no one there.

l walked past your house, and in the receding light
the glow of fireflies played in the grass,
and with those scents and sounds and thoughts of you,
I saw the swallows and I heard an owl.
A bus at the corner stopped and opened its doors,
but no one got off.

The perfumes of honeysuckle and mint
roiled in the air, and I heard the tolling of a far-off bell.
In the fading light, I smelled tarts in the oven
and coffee being made at the stove. I smelled
closets scented with moth balls and cedar,
and I thought there should have been fallen leaves
burning in piles at the curb.
But there was no glow anywhere, and no light within,
for the house was empty
and there was no one there.

Turning away, I walked across town
and found you there. The gates were still open,
and in the failing light I searched for the stone
that had your name. And there,
in the shadows that hid you,
a single rose beckoned:
a rose from your garden,
a yellow rose in a vase of glass.

But oh, how does it contain you, that space in the grass?
It’s surely too narrow, surely too short,
surely too small for someone
who once lived in that house.

Fireflies begin to knit a path in the darkness over your head,
and my heart cries. I walked past your house,
but you weren’t there.
I want to take you home,

but I can’t.