I often worry what is it that will
take away everyone I’ve ever met away.
Will it be a southbound train
scuffling down along an eroding coastline?
Will it be a red-eye airplane
soaring over to another burning coast?
Maybe it will be a marriage of sedans and vans
curling over thruways over old farm fields,
emptying into the home of an easterly sunrise.
Or perhaps it will be a bold adventure on a ship,
woolen caps and alpine sweaters bracing against
slick, cool jazz and arctic skylines.
It could be any type of a bike:
a motor that soars and dives along rolling hills;
a city bike that dares around Buffalo’s traffic;
a mountain trekking across the juniper,
pine and spruce potpourri of Colorado’s forest floor.
So what is it that will take you away from me?
Can I watch you go as your car turns in the distance?
Will you send me letters and seasonal postcards
or an occasional comment and digital poke
from a different era?
Or, like most, will you disappear overnight,
somewhere between conversation
and next remembrance, leaving the questions
if our connection was ever real
and what did I do to earn your indifference?
How else can one make sense of the transformation
that turns once close confidants
into fleeting fragments of obsolescenting oxytocin.
There must be a story, at least to calm the mind
of doubts as time continues to drift on.
At least if I knew if you took a kayak or canoe,
maybe I’d know where to look
for you one last time.