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| High Angle Rescue Drill, Firefighter Ian Wagner |
sipping the last of summer
from my glass of iced coffee,
I’m drenched in a moment
of luscious sunshine,
one of the few left before
autumn’s return.
I’m watching our youngest boys
with delight—
plastic swords and shields in their hands,
attacking The Alien, also known as
the small green sprinkler
with four arms
and a mind of its own.
A miniscule, slate blue butterfly
flits by
and then a larger one, white and clumsy—
meanders by too.
Does it know where it’s going?
I like thinking it doesn’t,
it just floats along, discovering.
But I know as I watch
two crows
wave west over my roof,
looking so purposeful,
that there are jobs to do, of course—
and each one of us has our own.
A neighboring apple tree
is nearly full of green-gold apples,
three Asian pear trees are laden
too—
our Polynesian neighbor
will fill sacks full of the succulent fruit soon,
drop them off on our porch,
with his brown-sugar fingers
and white smile, wrinkled.
My contentment spreads,
a drunken, giddy peace
in the listening to leaves rustling—
still clinging, green, to trees.
They will fall soon enough,
as time keeps its own pace.
I’ll savor this good day
with the gray day of remembering looming,
ashy, grating,
real—
for the grief of
New York’s Bravest, Best and Finest
and all who fell too soon.
But real, too, is the spirit
of what is the best of us.
And that has lived on.
I know it
in the browned fingers of giving,
in the bright laugh of the innocent,
and in your mouth on my neck—
like a breeze,
like sunshine.
I am reminded,
here, in this moment,
not eclipsed
by any large, evil scheme,
that come what may,
some will continue to Give,
Sacrifice,
Love.
And that is still The Finest Thing
on any given day.
© 2013 Jennifer Wagner
