Quiet summer evening in the aftermath of storm…
A whirlwind of four went through my life.
Twelve days later, the silence is deafening.
Madcap vacation days with their pleasant chaos
Flew by at the speed of sunny happiness—
Stretched out in their strange idiosyncratic “now�
That nostalgia makes too short, too quick,
Too brief through history’s telescopic view.
For a while, we were in each other’s pockets,
Noisy with our ready opinions, comebacks,
Bouts of laughter, and quick tempers.
The road was interminable, but beautiful,
As all of us gaped at landscapes we weren’t used to.
Even knowing we couldn’t capture it all,
We tried with our small digital screen,
Snapping glimpses, moments, bird’s eye vistas
For memory… and fun.
How many shapes can the clouds make?
How many angles can you see flat land from?
How many times can you shoot the same giant rock
As you zoom past at 70 miles an hour?
First there were green trees, rolling hills and wide lakes,
Then flat, featureless pasture as far as the horizon could reach.
Then the canyons, hills, and the painted desert
Intruded with myriads of color mixtures.
Shades of red striped past us until it all
Blended back into the mountain forests, and
Sloped away again into a different kind of desert, full of plants…
I thought the shades of brown and spots of dark green
Contrasted beautifully against the pale blue sky,
While the mountains and canyons played
Hide-and-go-seek with our car and camera
Until the grandeur of it all overwhelmed the senses.
We retreated to each other again,
Hiding our small storm from the too large landscape.
Suddenly, it seemed, we were back,
At the end of the interminable road,
At the end of the vacation.
The dust of the whirlwind settled and they were gone.
Although this evening is quiet, my mind is not.
I ponder over every memorable moment like a treasury of gems,
Placing them on the shelf in some fashion
That makes no sense to anyone else but me.
…And I wait for my whirlwind to return and stir them all up again.

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