And there was the football game that we all were at

And our team was losing badly and the players strutted like artificial athletes and the dancers danced and the bands took turns playing

And we asked how each other were these days

And you told me about the books you have been reading

While I noticed up above there were great, hot-pink billowing clouds, blushing from the rough nuzzling of white clouds, swollen with dark blue and static heat, lightening framed the curves of them both and that smell we all know so well filled the sky of something building

And the teenagers behind us cursed so tough and vacuous, and I smiled thinking on those days too

And where it all leads you

And the murmur of the crowd and the man on the loudspeaker announcing while interspersed with poorly written commercials came over the loudspeakers

And clouds began foreplay that no one saw but me building toward a cosmic copulation

And there was the sound of a tink, tink, tink while my eyes followed the sound as a grape Skittle found its way down accidentally cast aside by a hand reaching for more

And landing on the floor

Beside me

Beside this new version of us

And me, wanting to pick it up and “Taste the Rainbow” but not daring

And whistles blew and great herons flew in unison across a sky performing an intimate dance that no one saw

But maybe you, I’m not sure

But I did

I see and hear and taste and feel and smell it all and it all flows at times

So beautiful

Even when it is too much at times

And then there was the text you checked off to the side and the guest band had finished

And our daughter, who we came together to see, came on the field ready to perform at halftime

And we both adjusted our peripheral polite posture

To wait for the sound and movement of the show to begin

In those moments, between breath and start of show or storm

Between past and future, waiting for new moments to begin

We must remember to stop and take in all the everythings

The sights and sounds and scents

And pain of longing alongside the pleasure of presence

For in an instance it can all change

The whistle blew

And the band began.

~