Just a couple of miles
From the old man’s house—
But a long ways, he thinks.
Another stop on the road…
To where? He wonders.
Other than a few passing cars
On the highway
The place stays quiet
As the silence of a dead bird.
He remembers Melville, smiles,
“Not down on any map;
true places never are.”
He thinks of the lizard
In his garden,
Tamed now, appearing
every late afternoon
for the watering;
how once he held it,
made eye contact,
felt how the reptile
licked his palms for salt,
or was it
affection?
He sees how the wind
Has scratched the remaining
Rocks in the ruins.
All that’s left is
The remembering.
Benjamin Green is the author the upcoming Old Man Looking through a Window at Night (Main Street Rag) and His Only Merit (Finishing Line Press). At sixty-eight, he hopes his new work articulates a mature vision of the world and does so with some integrity. He resides in New Mexico.
