Two Step

We’re all so busy now
Calendars and inboxes
Clamoring
So connected, linked in,
with an app for every need and
Coordinates for every location,

We have so many ways now
To say so little.

Our landscapes are
Stained reminders
of choices we might have made
stuck to fridge doors
others free float on idle desktop screens
reminding us of where we might be
but some are alive in memory
the other connection

The winter you were two
we were alone,
just us three on the island.

All the houses shuttered tight
blank and empty.

In the snow only our tracks
to the barn
to the woodpile
to the shore and back.

That afternoon we walked through the empty village
Hats pulled down tight
So even the step and crunch of our booted feet
Seemed to echo from far away.

The gulls already hunkered down along the shore.
The crows gone silent deep in their forest gloom.

The last boats already run home
hurrying for the glimmer of the harbor.

At the top of the hill we stopped
to look down across fields
crusted and white with last week's snow
and followed the two lines of footprints
that twisted and wound,
wandering to where we stood.

Just us.

Two figures
one short
one tall.

Above us the light drained
from the darkening sky.

Just a streak remained
just a crack between air and sea
while all around
the coarse snow let go
the light it held
in a soft pale sigh.

The wind dropped out
and the long mutter and chatter of wave on stone
the restless creak of
leaning trees
all hushed now
and there
at the top of the hill
lifted up under the great arch of sky

I reached down
and took your hand again.

by Benjamin Weinberg

BENJAMIN WEINBERG | Writer, poet, educator. Commercial fisherman, builder, donut maker. South Africa, Maine, Madrid. Read more of his writings and connect with him on Medium.

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