I just need to write this down fast as a beginning — much work ahead, not much here but a rough idea, a feeling that I can’t capture yet
Yellow Moon
November born, we were still 17
but college IDs were good enough
for Urbana bars in those days
and nights, like when we straddled
the double yellow line that marked
the border with Champaign, serenading
that ripe old prairie moon
with Neil Young and Bob Dylan,
call and response like a prayer
ricocheting from town to town
and back, finding our rhythm,
blending slow and sweet, then
fast and wild my hands
your hips a drunken reverie:
(Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
Sundown, yellow moon,
Yellow moon on the rise,
I replay the past,
Big birds flying across the sky,
I know every scene by heart,
Throwing shadows on our lives,
They all went by so fast.)
We shared pitchers of warm beer
my flannel shirts
drags on your cigarettes
a twin bed beneath a window
and Jack Kerouac:
(The air was soft, the stars so fine,
The promise of every cobbled alley so great,
That I thought I was in a dream.)
Two far out hipsters in frayed jeans
holding hands across the monumental Quad
skipping to the boom boom beat
of our young and joyous hearts
listening for the far off rumble
of the raw American Midwest
holy night barreling west
across the big river
to the Great Plains
and the mountains and deserts
and sea beyond, end of the world
Which is where I went.
What could I share with you now,
Ghost lover from beyond the horizon?
My oldest child is just like we were then.
My daughter’s a reader, like you.
My youngest is named for Sal Paradise.
I lived in Mexico and learned to read
Neruda and Lorca in Spanish.
And what could you tell me?
Is the Tasty Freeze still by the lake
in the town you left behind?
Does the harvest moon still shine
sunflower yellow on the upturned
faces of young lovers?
Would you believe it if I
read you this poem
And would you kiss me one more time?
