Poetry Wednesday - Same Streets

Visited Santa Fe, the city different, with my sister this last weekend. It is a town I have been to many times with many different people. I have been there to shop, have a romantic weekend, scope out the galleries, attend a hearing about my disability, testify in court, see doctors . . . the list goes on. The town holds a wealth of memories: some good ad some bad. The objective this last weekend was to etch some new ones. And we did. But from time to time the past slips in.

Same Streets

Seen these sights before
Heard the cathedral bells toll for mass
I have sat upon that balcony
Discussed familiar news.

I have walked this street
Side by side with others looking in windows
Talking of nothing of import
Me with my camera
He with his impatience.

He never saw what I saw
I never understood why not
Me with my artist's eye
He with his engineering brain.

I saw the colors and shapes
The play of light and shadow
He spotted the building code violations
Checked his watch for our dinner reservations.

I paint.
He built
But we both read
Both loved to debate.

Walking these streets
Knowing never again with him
It all looked the same and so different
No impatience tugged at me with my camera.

I took pictures to my heart's content with no agenda
Photographs he was not obliged to tolerate
Had to sidestep to avoid being captured in
Santa Fe, the city different, even more different now
Now that he can never be with me again
On these sane streets we have walked.

It is about making memories
New ones to overlay the old
And yet I would look up from the view finder
And think I saw him there
Heard a snatch of conversation - his voice
Oh, but what pictures I took
Untethered of his impatience.

J. Binford-Bell, August 2010