Whiling

In the summer there is a movement through the trees;
the wind in its normal melancholy
fills up with the touch of soft leaves and warmth.
It feels like same the strength
that holds the vowels of my name in place
so I feel dizzyingly that I have arrived—
finally—
to a place opulent and vital
and insistent on my being there.

Everywhere I look, my heart looks back:
uncountable leaves rushing into the red sky
and falling in on each other to buoy up again,
lovers sitting by the river's glinting ripples of water,
the lit taverns across the street, silhouettes of people
whiling away their Sunday night inside,
the concrete path stretching before me,
blurring under my bicycle's tires.
All of this in the dim shroud of dusk becomes one thing—
a long awaited summer—home.

5/7/17