Light From A different Latitude

I left the desert,

A wild dystopian thing, bearing cultures with entire stories

Misunderstood by most,

Also, things new.

Famous soft, singing evenings filled with Spanish guitar

Sangria, molten noon, heat too much to bear

And colors of the serape, purple-pink and pear,

I traveled to find what had been lost,

Light of a different latitude.

Nights were colder,

Snow fell,

And stars were brighter.

Autumn was more than a palette of dizzy colors,

Weaving and spinning

Into the brown, crisp days of deep November.

The old house, with it's pallid paint and old Iris that sprang forth in the

Spring

Held mysterious power

It was the breath of beingness.

Your footfall

On wooden stairs

Bounding to the door

Lent hope to my cause.

And each time my heart would pause.

Every time on Ruby Street,

In golden moments, I wandered with you on grey concrete,

Sidewalks,

Older than my usual beat.

Small flowers and such pushing up to find light,

Older linoleum, grey, too

And worn carpets soothing to my sensibilities, like your eyes, light blue-

Called to my heart, “ Stay, Stay!”

Lulling me to comforts long lost in my life.

Light from another latitude,

Cool.

Quiet.

Whalley Avenue, ran beside, overcast with disturbing human endeavors

Remnants of inequities.

And the Jewish cemetery ,

All laid to rest by sundown

By people who knew how transitory

Was the breath and aspirations of the crown,

And every midnight calling.

Nights were colder

Stars were brighter

And Autumn was more than dizzy colors spinning

Into deep November.

It was a refrain with such lovely containment,

like a song-

I have let it play, again

And again, and again.