Old Photographs...

I was in the café, sitting in front of the potted geraniums
wearing the straw hat I just bought.
I was writing a postcard to my mother
when I looked up to see the shadows
of the early autumn evening
dancing on the stucco walls.

Then you walked by—you were taking pictures of the light.
I watched you… trying to imagine what you were seeing there.
And then you turned your gaze on me
and shot this one here—
a little out of focus—but it was then that I saw them—
the tenderest eyes I’d ever seen.

Look. This is where we found ourselves standing later
by the edge of the river—the one Van Gogh painted.
We walked for hours feeling Van Gogh.
You talked apertures, lens and focus.

This was the hotel, Le D’Arlatan…
Do you remember wandering the back streets—
lost in the cobbled labyrinths—
till we found ourselves here?

The oversized antique bed held expectations. I felt shy.
You said—“Pull the curtains,” and I pulled the heavy curtains back.
I read you a poem by candlelight.
You smiled right into my soul—then served us farmer’s wine
in the opalescent glasses we’d bought that day.

I put the photographs down.
“It was so good,” you say.
“Like the wisp of a dream I can barely remember.”
I lean into your eyes; those milky apertures
transparent with the film of a lifetime.

Now, I offer you wine and pull the curtains open
catching the last dance of light on the peach colored walls.
You put on the old songs…
We sit in chairs by the window,
admiring the blue hydrangeas
our knees will touch, and we will speak about how
the quality of light makes everything different
and everything the same.