I was walking to the moon tonight
I couldn’t help,
its face smiling at me with silver
so bright.
Shining down on earth
with all its might.
Who sees all we do
each night,
who has perfect sight.
Off I walk to the moon tonight,
face uplifted
countenance contrite.

I am a reporter of life.
A recorder of all your dreams, hopes,
tears and fears.
The way I see them,
the way you don’t know that you share them
with the world.
From your eyes, your tongue, your hands, your heart;
I soak them up.
I rewrite them in a way that you never would;
a way that you will never see them; until I say them.
But the rest of us do.
Through them, we see you,
not the way you think you want us to;
but the way of you.
The way the rest of the world reflects
off your face, your words, your deeds, your soul;
the way the rest of the world feels
You in it.
I’ll have a cup of Americana… with cream.

The days are indeed getting cooler and I sit on the porch wrapped in the blanket I’ve had for life. As I watch through the thick fog, trying to see the light, I listen to the news caster’s frantic tone. His words are our chosen steps through this latest mind.

For freedoms

of speech

to bear arms,

we beseech

each other to hear our voice,

to do harm

to secure our one moment

of righteousness

of rightness

of fame

celebrity.

At all others’ expense,

at whose loss

can we justify our approach to life.

The coffee is weak this morning.

The mornings are getting cooler, I can tell by the feel of the sheets. The way the heat is gone as soon as my lover leaves the bed. In the warmth of summer, they stay damp long after his body has left.  I wish for the cool breeze then, but the heat is all that lingers.

That’s the way it is here in Ohio, all that lingers is a ghost of what used to be.  The summer heat gives way to the cool fall mornings and it seems I can run my hand right through the emptiness surrounding this town.

The air around me in these sheets is full and thick, heavy with the weight of the heat from our passion.  I lay my head back down on the cool sheets and close my eyes; the daylight will come soon enough.  Until then, I’ll just lie here in the cool breeze and remember distantly when it used to be so warm.

The summer is late now and I walk in the stifling heat, head lowered against the sun’s strong glare, counting the colored shards of glass along the sidewalks as I go. Green, brown, orange and blue, like pieces of fallen sky beneath my feet. Broken dreams lost in the previous night emerging in the light; glinting back at me with their jagged edges. Somehow they still seem to sparkle though.

My weekend was filled with finite life; hopes unraveled and fears unfolded.
I watch my own as they file, one by one, past me in that self-inflicted processional march staring into the ground as if searching for direction in the dirt. The rain falls quietly into my hair, while they touch their hands, their cheeks, they stare.
I can’t help but wonder if tears are the glue that hold humanity together.

He fidgets through the door, his blue shirt the color of a dirty robin’s egg, buttoned up to his throat and tucked gingerly into his pressed blue jeans and high-waisted belt. He is no bigger than my seventy-nine year old mother.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Reni asks.
“Born Free, “he answers, hurriedly and softly.
Reni’s eyes look at us searchingly. “I don’t know it,” she says.
Selma and I immediately break into song… “Born Free, as free as the wind blows…” as we send Reni off to a forgotten shelf in the back of the store.
“Would you like a coffee?” I suggest, as we wait for her return.
His translucent white hair sits atop his pale, soft face; the watery blue eyes dart here and there as he answers, “Yes please, with a lid.”
He waits quietly while Reni wraps the book. He carefully takes the coffee and the book and walks out the door.
None of us can keep ourselves from practically running to the window to watch him as he makes his way off the porch and down the long walk. Her eyes widen with anticipation as he walks toward her with the book. We all watch silently as she tears its wrapper off, her long dark hair mingling with the bright red scarf as it blows in the wind. I can’t help but think of one of Ian Fleming’s Bond girls driving in her sports car at high speeds, through the curvy mountain roads. He hands her the coffee. She immediately takes the lid off and throws it on the ground.
He quickly picks it up, puts it in his pocket and grabs the padded black handles of the chair and begins to push with all his might. Off they go; I hear Selma singing under her breath, “Live Free…”

Author’s Note:
Born Free, written in 1960, by Joy Adamson; was made into a film in 1966; song lyrics written by John Barry.

Lyrics:

Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Each time you look at a star

Stay free, where no walls divide you
You’re free as the roaring tide
So there’s no need to hide

Born free, and life is worth living
But only worth living
‘Cause you’re born free

They practically stumble through the door, fumbling to make sure they look “together,” a new couple trying to look older and experienced in their love, not like the older couples that come in trying to find their way back to that young love again. Their fingers lace in and out, they ask each other’s opinions and one always agrees with the other. They wander idly along the maze of shelves, in and out, roaming eyes skipping and gliding over the titles, always peeping and glancing their way back towards each other. Their language is all in future tense; but they don’t yet realize that they are their future, in one way or another.

The coffee this morning tastes strong and green, like the summer day. Bright like the sun when it’s rising, still white in the early day sky. The heat is already hanging in my hair, my head, the leaves. Sweat covers everything that dares to step out into this new, new day; it mingles with the dew to coat everything with its tiny droplets, perfect clear circles of moisture; tokens of relief in the white hot sunlight.
The Bookstore porch is quiet this morning, too early for our regulars yet. It gives me a chance to sit and watch as the day opens up. There is a time in the mornings that has been the same forever. No matter what, nothing changes it. It is that time when the night closes its shades on the deeds done in the darkness, and the sun begins stretching and reaching and cutting through the darkness to bring the world back into focus again. Another twelve hours for a chance at living.

I was dusting the shelves one morning when they walked in; wearing the same white hair helmet, same dark suit jacket and same red tie with the small design on it. They were the same, that’s why they met each morning.  To confirm that their view was still the best view of the way the world should run.

They took their coffee … black.