Walking, Walking
Four way-too-brief displaced days
Have outpaced this Friday past,
Elapsed into the space memory and imagination maintain,
In the service of sustaining my psyche's sense of integrity,
Safeguarding then from oblivion,
Tonight from being crowded out by history.
And yet even now,
I feel as if I were walking, walking, stride for stride,
From the Art Institute, through Millennium Park,
Due north, on Michigan Avenue,
Toward the Drake Hotel, under Lake Shore Drive, to the beach...
Walking, walking at a stimulating clip,
All the while holding hands with you, Linda,
Reveling in being part of that vital, pulsating city,
Just the two of us St. Louisans,
Amidst those massive steel-and-glass obelisks,
Serenaded by late-afternoon, homeward-passing traffic,
Gazed at, by scavenging seagulls
Mere inches from our matching New Balances,
We exercising our liberated spirits' right to be and breathe,
See and not be seen, hear and not be heard,
Parse the carefree-verse of our feet without being told how...
Walking, walking, with an unabashedly passionate respect
For each other's ageless athleticism,
A reverence for our bodies' indomitable stamina,
The energy our bones and blood generate
Out of the unadulterated jubilation we derive
Just from being alive in a time that belongs to us alone,
Only to us epiphany-seeking lovers,
Soul mates who, out of the fortuitous blue,
Have discovered each other's hidden identities
To be so identical as to render us wholly at peace with us...
Walking, walking toward you, walking, walking toward me.
11/02/10 - (2)
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