On Leave

Happiness - you're back

like a soldier on leave

please

stay

Your old friend calm
along with you too
don't
go

The both of you
together
again

It seems like
only yesterday

I miss your faces
when you're
away

Piece

Malcolm
You sat there with your picture
Crude drawing

Young boy
I thought I could save you

with words

We were worlds apart 

when you showed me what you prized
You with your lone illustration

All shared vacation dreams

Some wanted to take music
others, only family

An ice breaker

A classroom assignment

Just share your things

What would you take on vacation

What would you pack

if you might never come back

I asked if it was a gun

You said No

that ain't no gun

It's my Glock

We locked eyes - in my confusion

I remember


You would just take your gun
I asked 

My Glock - you corrected

No laughter from others
They knew you
I nodded and let it be

Malcolm 

You were the hardest of them all
I thought I could save you with my words

I heard from a friend
It went badly for you

Malcolm, I thought I could save you with words

Trigger

Sometimes
near the end of summer
light takes on a certain slant
If the moment is right
I'm taken by an old memory

I sense the air is golden-blue
The old house
on top of a slight hill
Paint fading
on the clapboard and filigree
An enormous tree spreading
shading the beautiful
time-worn place

I believe 
I've never been here
this place inside my mind
Although this peaceful scene
brings me quiet joy
I'm never quite certain why

Sometimes I think it might be heaven
A place to transition though
A waiting place of sorts perhaps
Others might call it
false-nostalgia
for lack of any better term

To best describe the feeling
I amalgamate two separate words
It might do to explain it as
nostalgic-deja vu
A longing to return
Where
I'm not quite sure

The story you wrote

I read it aloud
as the boys looked on
back where our roses used to grow

You wrote it, you said
as Disintegration played,
the candles for light, deadline looming

I spoke your words
from the depths of you
wondering if I was the guy with the calling

Twenty years gone by
I would read them all again
to the boys who may have grown into men