Birds flew over the wooden bench where
he sat tall and simple,
a lump on his throat, wanting to say something special.
There were mad dreams in his mind,
miles, hills, and spread of fields
crossing over laughters and weddings.
Unshaven, red-eye from waiting for that moment.
I ran away to the trip of promise, the highway of rushing machine balls,
leaving the dust settle on the sleepy stones, the burned earth and seared dried bones.

When I returned,
the kites would no longer fly, the wind a soft bubble of adolescent whisper.
A gravity paused,
the skin between spaces widened,
the cracks on calloused hands smoothened.
I breathed the peculiar sound of trees
that had grown distant worlds,
I looked for the young grasses that had escaped wildly on the lap of tempest’s grasp.
I glimpsed a fading silhouette,
an arithmetic and a lost rhythm looking for wooden arms
to hold on.

There he sat tall
and simple,
the words unspoken,
almost, almost within the hearbeat of a son’s hearing.