early october

early October
Friday evening comfortable
i slip out to the back porch
sit on the old white wicker settee

drifts of light air on prevailing winds
bring the urgent tap, tap tap of snare drums
fractured crowd noise barely audible
dribble in with fragments of the field announcer
at the high school football game a mile away

in mostly quiet i see the trees, white houses,
all the way down a block to the church steeple
the pond falls ripples near me in the backyard
swirling clouds above
block out the moon and the stars

i think of Rome and California
places in between
once or twice,
faces from the years
parade by unseen
as memories not precise
and i remember you