I don't want anything new.
Not today.
I want venerable, worn-in shoes,
frayed, soft sweaters, wool hats,
and hand-sewn quilts that show their age
now, just as I do.
I want grey-haired dogs to lie beside me
with snores like prayers.
I'd light the lamp and browse through piles
of carefully hoarded books,
sipping phrases like spirits:
old stories of Russians and Turks;
grizzled bears and wind.
I need to walk
on a time-worn mountain,
where pines cluster on the saddle,
and I'd follow them down through draws
where the larkspurs grow.
I want my mother back
with her lake-blue loving eyes and old soul,
just as she used to be.
If only I could hear that first song
of the meadowlark -
trilling innocence into blue-white sky
so many years ago.
I'd run out into the new morning
and never look back.
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