Ah, what was that? A piece, a fragment, where the wind blew just right, just now, and the way the light is playing on that willow's branches, the way it dances, and through my eyes and throat and lungs it pools, just for a moment. And this brief tick (tock) is felt, an object, where all the things that are right now, the things that grip at the fabric of this second, flow through its prism and separate and throw scenes (their smells, feelings), long forgotten, onto the canyon wall, over the vast divide that keeps sweet memory blurred. Look! The way this autumn air crisps, there I am when I was young, when my father was strong and took me on walks through New England's ancient maple and ash. The light, it flits and beckons, and that is my first love, when I was afraid of the thing. And the blue sky, its soft wind, I am small and cradled in the sleeping lap of my mother. It leaves me, and I'm left short of breath, working quickly to dig a wider moat.