For Leah: Into the Present

"Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and the longitudes." -Henry David Thoreau

The hum of life passes around him

But he's stuck in the past

Lost in the sea of old faces

And even older places

refusing to let go

of the joy he felt there

At "way back when"

His vision is clouded

with these wild memories

of craziness and happiness and neon

His ears ringing with the sway of palm trees

And the laughter of old friends by a camp fire.

But life goes on

In it's monotone dance

Pulling him forward

Into the present

Clutching the sweetness

of the past

to his fast beating chest