unleashed

 

The white chops of my dog's legs flash 

as she trots ahead of me -

she revels in her freedom

despite the signs instructing those of us who walk the trails

to keep our dogs leashed.

She darts to one patch of leaves

then to a stand of grass

all beneath the shade of oaks 

and maples

and hemlocks -

her snout to the ground

and snuff-snuff

before she is off again

experiencing a layer of reality I am cut off from -

a fourth dimension I have no senses to perceive.

But, 

her joy becomes my joy as I watch 

and I am unleashed

and find I can smell the disturbed mulch

and I can hear the rustle of the wind

and I feel the hand of the sun on my cheek

as I pass between the solidity of the trunks.

when it was not

I am drinking coffee looking out the window 

at the oaks and maples
as I have done thousands of times. 

This is morning in my house. 

But I was not the first to drink coffee here -

there was a different table and different chairs

when I walked through with my agent

and the Parkers were still making their home here.

I could look at records at Town Hall to see 

who was their before them, 

the chain of property rights extending back

to when this spot was only oaks and poplars

and no table to sit at, or window to look through. 

But there are no records of the future for me to look up 

to whom I sold it to

in some year 

hopefully long from now -

or perhaps my children are listed as the sellers. 

The buyers names are not yet written in history.

Perhaps they are getting dropped off at elementary school this morning,

she is wearing a yellow jacket, the color of fall maple leaves;

he has collected acorns to show his teacher. 

They do not even know each other yet.

They are coming down Time's road to this house,

and they will sit here with their morning coffee someday,

looking out this window

at the spindly oak I am looking at now -

the one that has just stuck its head up past the rhododendrons -

which by then will have grown into its oakish majesty. 

They will know it was not always so,

but they will not remember when it was not.