Georgia used to give us ice cold grape soda on a broiling boiling July of a day
Generic
nothing tasted better
Then she got the ‘Zhimers and would haunt the driveway with a glare that wasn’t hers
Set like a sun an angry burning sun when there’s forest fires and the air’s too hazy to remember
But I do
On a clear May day when everything has moved so fast and far
Away
I remember her
and the grape soda
From a single white flower blooming for the first time by the driveway
You know, the kind that used to grow by her driveway. I think it’s related. Planted with care by my driveway (something made me put it there, suddenly) to remember. It should grow by every driveway, watching the hellos and goodbyes of Everyday with a smile and a delicate dance in the breeze
(Precious.)
Forever here, forever someday, real as the plastic lawn chairs we’d sit in by her tidy carport.
Now things are more real, and the same, yet somehow the same. Someday is right now.
The gardens were dug and shovels stowed I had said in idle chatter on a sunny afternoon of now that I’d like to try it someday
But someday is right now
It always is.
Sounded like Niagara Falls, the way the cherry moonshine tumbled from the mason jar into a cheap plastic cup that grew as wide as my eyes but I drank once Whew my sinuses are clear buddy! and again That’s smooth and yet again and again and remained standing I think it was some friendly test.
Dad’s birthday was yesterday (happy birthday, sir, congratulations on ___ years of excellence) and mom’s exactly a Friday ago, a Beatles song.
But how?
Grandpa’s picture looks the same, holding me as a baby, his hair darker than mine now, but flannel shirts and bookcases in the photo jumped out of the little piece of paper onto me and now I have bookcases and flannel shirts, or maybe that’s what Destiny is,
and I carry on, writing Today in what will be an old book soon.
Something grabbed me by the nose years ago with a pull and a shake and hasn’t let go. The moonshine only pointed it out.
Great grandmother’s clock ticks on the shelf while the frogs join in. It’s Saturday afternoon.
Someday.
