Time on the Greenway

We rode today,
my sons and I,
our bikes along the Greenway.

Down the path along the route the river ran
waters hidden
behind a rank of trees,
--a slip of promise through their branches--
we rode
along the boxy corn fields,
we rode
and then shot into the woods.

And I--
I remembered
a poem I wrote
years ago.
I remembered;
when the sun broke the canopy
fell piebald over the ground's ferny spread,
I remembered--
a similar scene years before.
One that drew my gaze upward--
So I looked yet again,
--all these years gone between--
looked for evidence of
the effects of time.

I looked up and found
I still echoed the words
written so long ago:

"I saw the patterns of sun upon the leaves
leaves upon the sky
and I wondered that in all those patterns
none were boxes."

Twice the age of that young poet, I see
what I already knew:
leaves though seasonal
are, in this, ageless.
I must go deeper if I'm to see
the evidence of
the effects of time.

So I cross hoary hill and dale, peering
avid to uncover the secret hid;
how did I sense its draw?

Here the land is unique.
Here the land is...
Time-scoffing;
a place infused with a mysterious power
to make the common and dying
throb
with beauty.

Where some places
a river, muddy,
sludges along its bed;
Here, the sun kisses it thick bronze,
its shadowed places
edged in rainbow ripples,
heavy, it glides.

Where some places
the old man is just another fisherman;
Here, the sun likewise transfigures.
His white shirt and cap sing
a fiery glow of fused-color oneness,
his line a silver thread,
strong where it plunges into the depths.

Where some places
the trees are musty dying,
prone to hollow trunks:
Here, the sun anoints them,
seals them to officiate
--rife with dignity,
robed in moss
stoled in ivy--
appoints them
to lean down and hear the secrets
of the river.

But deeper still, I would go
to see the greatest effect of time.
Its dirge is presumed by most
but for false reasons, I think,
In some places.

For when the river cries,
and the sun pleads,
and the trees moan,
Here,
it is not inspired by any loss
within them.
Their highest honor revealed,
they cry:
"Sit and reflect!
Without your pause,
your look,
your sigh--
We are to you,
but a muddy ditch,
and sour trees,
and an old man, lessening,
If you pause, will you see
There is so much more?"

But the people walk on.
Most are happy, smiling and nodding,
suffering
this faint, subliminal knowledge:
they walk a domain of secret grace.
But none go so far as to stop.
None sit.
None stare at nothing in particular,
(except maybe the children who ride in wagons.)

Should I make a promise to this earth,
so old
Here in this place?

Next time I come--
now I've discovered your charms--
Will I bring
a sketchpad and some watercolors,
a tall cool bottle of lemonade?
Will I listen to your stories--
The ones no one wanders down your banks to hear anymore?