A Sidewalk with Yellow Blooms

On a sidewalk, sprays of yellow blooms arch overhead
While footsteps click and sink away behind me—
Another path I’ve walked, O Lord, and I am weary.

Once, running down from my grandpa’s home
Down a white sand river, chased by the wind,
Red bougainvilleas crowded the edges,
Bobbing and tossing to catch a glimpse

Once, riding the avenues of Africa
Msasa trees, rattling with cicadas,
Lined up on either side like sentries,
Led me through an abandoned world

Then, I’d never name a road as a road,
No start or finish, all was absolute journey,
All time moving from movement to movement—

How did then become now – this tunnel of flowers
This broken sunlight shifting underfoot,
The mere aftertaste of other distances?

Perhaps, when all things drain of taste and touch
Leaving only outlines, some idea of themselves,
When white dust-sheets descend over the places
Where we first named each other and embraced.
When they sink into the faint shapes of memory,

Perhaps then time drifts over our hearing,
Whispering of a coming season, and a journey to come,
And beyond the open double doors
A path of pavestones lies, veiled by rain
Where soon I’ll walk,
Searching for the place the world escaped to.