A Montreal Garden on an Autumn's Eve

To those who write fortune cookies -the more you think you understand, the less you do.
Trust me.

As for you -Here's looking at you kid

As I look at your garden, where you worked with the sweat of your brow, I think of where you've been and what you've seen.
I remember sweet fruit planted in me with hope, and grown with love in the green of Spring.
Then came the burning passion of Summer, and all blossomed.

But now that I return, when early Winter frosts kiss late Fall mornings under a crisp blue sky, I see the brown of summer as all that you have worked on has shriveled.

"Where is the love of your Spring and the fire of your Summer?" I cry . . . but no one answers me. You are silent, the world is silent, everything is so silent that it screams -the silence itself shattering the peace.

So I run into the streets . . .

I run down the long short path, and it takes me nowhere . . . I run and I run, yet I stand firmly rooted in place -I run to escape, but wind up more there then I ever wanted to be. I look forward, but only see behind me.

Dead leaves blow on empty roads that have long since cracked from winter ice and cruel salt.

. . . and I say it will never happen again -I will stay from the pit as mole from sun, but I fall once more to the deep within . . . even as I smile, even as I rejoice. Even as I hope, I despair.

Even as despair, I hope . . . because no matter how bitter the cold, and thick the coming snows, the hope remains.




I see the leaves that were so green.
And now they have yellowed like pages of a book . . .
They flicker like tongues of yellow-gold flame . . . licking the air and gasping for breath -as even now their is a graceful beauty in the death of Spring, Summer and Autumn as they fold into Winter.
Even as the succumb to black spots, they shine.

Magic eight ball, what do you say? I waited to shoot you in last, and I won. But not the one?





I see myself, and I stop.

But even as I stop, even as I read the sign, I keep going.
And I don't want to. Your garden has dried, the hands that tended it are ice, frozen and forgotten by those that said they would never forget.

So I wait, and I curse the waiting.
I hope, and I curse the hoping.

Yet I wait, and yet I hope.

I take a picture of myself now, and I fold it into the pages of time -stamped and dated as vignette of my life for all who wish to see . . .

You don't understand why I would do it, neither do I . . .

"Why do wish others to see what you write?" you ask me.
and I laugh, and I make a remark -glib words in empty space moving out to the end of time.


But I keep the picture on me, and I remember it.

Because I want to remember you, - the me that is now - as I remember the me with you that was then . . .
Because I've been looking for you for a long time . . .I once looked for you Cloaked in charcoal . . . wrapped in brown . . . and crowned with black -but you weren't there.So I tried to run away, walking down the parkway of life. And at last I sang a song of peace; of cat eyes, fireflies . . . things that light up the night.So I moved and traveled on -I waited before Russia, and called when I came back. But that wasn't you, not the you that was me, nor will be me.So I went to Peru, and I climbed Inca mountains and pained pictures in the sand . . . when I returned, I expected you to be there, where I left you . . . But that wasn't you.And I called, and I waited. And I cursed the calling, and the waiting.Yet I hope . . . and I question the hoping.
So I realize that the only you that I will ever be is the me that I always was. Not the you that I want me to be, nor the me that I want you to be. That would be I, not we.

So I let that butterfly fly free in the crisp autumn air in the sharp blue skies and the razor winds.

Because you know something, we'll always have Paris.

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