Stargazing on the Alzheimer's Ward

I need to plant a magnolia

Those trees gather night and winter ‘round their feet, a cool memory of snow on a blazing July, and keep the idea of green aloft in their boughs, checking the bitter winds of the leafless forests. The gusts might resent reality and howl about it, hissing through the leaves, but then again, who doesn’t from time to time? Nothing is eternal, not even winter. No, you can’t see the manager–yet. (Be careful what you wish for.)

The trees stand darkly by forgotten homesteads and in the suburban numb, old books somehow mixed in the stack of People magazines on your dentists’ coffee table, viewed between 45 and 55 mph and a clock that won’t stop ticking.

But the hours of reverie and tire noise clicks to a close with the sound of a turn signal, and it’s showtime.

“Come out and look.”

They tottered at the door, unsteady

Gravity and cold are bitter enemies when your candle burns low

And you can’t remember names

But they braved it, and peeked through a waiting telescope at the crescent moon tacked into a clear blue evening

“Do you see the flag?” I asked.

“You’re a tease” she said. “Hey, the man waved back.”

“Who’s a tease now?”

We laughed together, human again, and then everyone went inside, maybe for good.

Spring is like that, when the Earth first opens her eyes and recalls some dream when

anything

and everything.

I roll along the quiet roads and roaring concrete highways and watch the trees think about budding out, and I think about them thinking about it, and high above, there’s a crescent moon is looking down. Down by the river, the frogs start to sing.

Possibility has a certain softness to it.

I need to plant a magnolia.

–Josh