Listening to a Porch Swing

An old man sits, listening
to the creaking of his porch swing.
He touches his lips,
feeling the wrinkles of time
and stories of a thousand smiles.
Moving to his eyes, a reflection
of a hundred bright summer days.

A single leaf
falls in a swaying dance,
and lands
on the Velcro of his cracked and faded
brown leather shoes.
He picks it up and sniffs,
it tickles his nose
and breaks apart,
bent by the cool crisp fall breeze.
He closes his eyes and rests.
The leaf begins to dance
off the porch, past the field
and down the road.

The next day it snows
and covers the leaf
with a thick blanket of white.
Resting -
like the old man rests.
His house left speechless, except
for the ticking
of his father's old cedar clock.
The picture frames present
his three granddaughters
and collects dust, his plants
stretch for the floor.
His bed is left unmade.

A few months later
a bird wakes up and sings,
enjoying the warm bath
of sun melting snow.
It perches on a branch that once
let go
of a single leaf.
The bird flies to a neighboring tree
and becomes a mother
giving melody, awakening
the arid stillness.

A young girl
sits on a porch swing
and listens to the creaking
of her grandfather.
She walks inside the house, makes a bed
and blows the dust off a picture frame.
Her soft lips smile, her cheeks the color
of a pink rose.
She keeps the frame.

The beginning of June, sticky
warm humidity
creates a film of water drops
on plump baby skin.
The girl walks outside, the baby
in her arms.
She sits on the porch swing,
and listens to life -
a tractor in the field, birds, wind,
her baby cooing. He smiles,
and she thinks -
already he looks like her grandfather.