Mending Thoughts

1.

Mending Thoughts

Andrew Paterson

How I wish this moment

                                                would sweetly linger, and

                                                not so soon become the

next.

                                    -1953

A PREFACE

In the first moments of Autumn I talked with a girl whom I had admired for only a short time; who said that, while towns like these harbor some of the best memories, it is best for you, and for I, to find a place of our own to do the same.

            “As long as they last,” I said.

            And she agreed.

-Eugene, 29 October 2013

DEDICATION

                                    The before and what follows, here and forgotten,

                                    are placed before those who simply care enough

                                    to try and remember times of gold leaves and

pink skylines, where we wanted nothing more

                                    than to stay among each other for a little

while longer.

PROLOGUE

                                    A young boy shot through sun-washed roads, his

shirt held and clung to miraculous youth, and

his hair the home front of chiming wind.

                                    He understood then, that if life is merely moments,

                                     that it is best to walk instead of glide.

I

                                    “The season is like Sundays” dad turned, to speak

                                    only in a faint shred of memory somewhere far gone.

                                    I looked up at him with fear and absence, to say

                                    “What do you mean?” and he replied, as if

he had thought for a long while-

“Some feelings can’t be explained.”

But I will do my best.

WINTER

                                    I never dressed like the others did, come days of snow.

                                    Asleep at night, adrift in a sea of blankets, and I,

more accepting of the cold.

If anything, I can say I’ve lost that.

I

                                    The friends have come and gone, like days in fields,

                                    as if each were their own significant baseball game,

                                    and I just playing until dark or ‘till my feet

                                    became stuck to the earth, in time to see the world

going by in a blurred cosmos, the only

                                    indication being change in temperature,

                                    or change of heart.

II

The seasons turn on themselves as if in treachery.

Not just a passing, disillusioned four.

I can’t help but wonder, aimlessly, why

I no longer find comfort in the cold.

III

                                    Perhaps, I have thought over and over again,

                                    loneliness is not the same as solemnity, and

                                    it is best to hold on to what you can.

                                    Even if it means letting go.

NIGHT

                                    Darkness is pressing, pierced only by wandering

                                    moons, and the minds of those still young,

                                    caressing their palms as if to replicate some

timeless feeling of joy.

I

                                    I closed the blinds over my windows, years ago.

                                    For while the thought of someone watching

                                    proved fearful, it might be nice in these times-

                                    times that make you want to stay in darkness

for eternity.

II

                                    “What could be down there,” voices tend to howl

at the mouth of a tunnel,

                                    Anything could be there, if age has made me

                                    aware of such things.

                                    “Fear of the dark is nothing to fear of the unknown,”

Implored a lost one, who finds the mask more

frightening than the smiling face

behind it.