Sometimes All I Think About is You

Pavement placed in patterns
demarcating a fresh neighborhood
the pipes are laid, the plots marked out,
but no houses were ever built.

Curved curbs without sidewalks
the steady hand of a small town,
surrounded by thick mountains
laced with forest covered grounds.

Our feet moved over pavement,
though the ground slipped underneath,
oversaturated, without drainage,
the hillside about to leave.

Hard stone forms turned into a
gravel sideroad,
unofficial but in use,
by neighborhood kids and dogs,
we walked, and volunteered ourselves
for some quiet,
and stepped into the woods.

The path ahead was marked
by the slight parting of underbrush,
and our steps made up the rest.
Bending back branches to shield
our eyes from the untamed wilderness.

A fallen tree became our table,
and setting water bottles down,
like building houses out of cards,
we breathed in the quiet air around us,
listening for the sound.

The harmony of something in between,
bird feathers and the sun,
the soft footsteps of groundlings,
and the insects on the run.

As we continued on our narrow path,
our destination at a distance unknown,
we cleared felled branches, and
admired the bark of trees,
noting the new muck on our feet.

At unplanned intervals we stopped to listen,
and every step brought us nearer to the sound,
off in the distance and ever constant,
the river’s rush of water could be found.

Getting tired, feeling weary,
but urged to go on,
by nature’s warbling song,
to the woodpecker’s beat,
we walked on
and found the river,
booming loud over smooth rocks,
tamed by the water,
an unsettled rest.

We took our time taking in
the view,
The rapid water
and the slow shred
of stones,
then turned around.

Tracing our footfalls
we found our way back
to the ghost of a subdivision,
the outlines of plans unkept
in the pseudo permanence of stone,
existing only until they erode.

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