on a cool fall evening.
A golden, tired sun,
weak from another summer,
heads to slumber behind the house.
Trees,
just now showing signs of wear,
permit themselves to be heard.
A gentle rustling of leaves in the wind.
He sits quietly on the front porch,
looking beyond home's shadow
cast across the front yard
toward Main Street.
He has a clear view of life which never stops.
Children enjoying precious moments of play before being called in for supper.
People walking past on sidewalks.
Wheels rolling in the street.
His mother stands behind the screen door,
her face, like stone, yet her eyes always sympathetic.
As she brushes away a strand of gray hair
she cries silently,
lifting her other hand to her mouth
hoping to catch the sound.
This time she does,
unlike many others
late at night face down on the sofa
when muffled weepings tiptoe through the stillness.
It is then the other children wake, and walk closer,
peering through open doorways at their mother,
without understanding.
She wipes away the tears, pushes the screen door open
and turns to pat on the head the little girl that follows.
Her job is to hold the door. Do not let it slam shut.
On the wooden porch the mother steps to her son
and rests her hand on his shoulder.
His body becomes more fragile with every passing month.
Bones beneath a pale sheet.
His expression is blank,
as though he were tired of seeing life.
But he's only twenty-two.
Behind his eyes, however, is a teenager,
deprived of a future.
The accident froze him at seventeen.
Life for him has never moved on.
It never will.
Meanwhile, the sun has drifted off to sleep,
and the autumn night coexists with the streetlight on the corner.
A happy couple walks hand-in-hand beneath the October sky.
Down the road, electric store signs flicker.
In the street, leaves are stirred by a passing car.
All around, others' lives go on.
She lifts her hand from his shoulder
and pushes him inside.
The little girl is careful to close the screen door gently.
Outside another car passes,
unobserved from an empty porch.
Wheels turn.
His life stands still.
(written in law school and posted today as part of Throwback Thursday)