SOMEWHERE SOMETIME
(for John, with love)
Word Count: 272
Today we thought we had lost you forever and our skin burned with tears, our eyes split open with pain. Then we looked closer and deeper, farther behind and ahead.
Somewhere we’ll hear a fiddle prancing through a sparkling summer night and think of you. Orange Blossom Special and Flop-Eared Mule like you played at our wedding and some Willie you played just for me.
Sometime we’ll see a cool dude on a motorcycle cruising on gray ribbons of road, not a hair spiked out of place by the wind, shades hitting bugs flying the wrong way down the trail.
Somewhere we’ll hear the guitar wailing wild and rocking the walls. We’ll feel the room shake, watch the dancers you played with like puppets attached to your strings.
Sometime we’ll be splashed by the ocean, inhale its salt scent in the breeze, hear the wash and pull of the tide, the crash of the waves. You’ll be burning brown in the sand under the sun, the heat feeding your Summertime soul.
Somewhere we’ll see a man and his wife tasting the latest, the best, dipping their hands in the good things of life and of love, the simplest things of the heart. And there, a father and son just hanging together, needing no more than that to be happy. A brother so different, so talented, so on his own path yet a rock-hard foundation of family. Images embedded in time.
And though this time you didn’t squeeze my hand back, and didn’t feel the touch of my kiss on your forehead, it’s okay; we’ll still remember somewhere and sometime forever.
this touched me. i like your experimenting with POV lately. this one works well. i especially like the last paragraph.
Thank you, Marcus. I didn’t consciously experiment with POV, it just came out this way, at the end of a long, difficult day. My dear brother-in-law died yesterday morning.
Hi Susan my heart aches for you and your family’s loss. I know that they will be comforted by your words. S.
Shirley, thank you for your kindness. It’s been a very difficult time and I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
lovely. saying goodbye, looking forward, thinking back, sadness in the present.
really sorry to read of the back story to this, susan.
hope you and yours are faring ok.
Thank you, Stephen. I’m glad that it gave comfort to my family and was asked to print and frame it for them. It’s this form of publication of my work that’s made me feel better than anywhere else.