Tea Fire

...All the neighborhood
watched the fire burn from where they stood
as the smoke said,
"We're not half as bad as G-d is good"

quaker oats, loaf of bread, groceries against tired feet
the cutest old man i ever met
staring at the same articles & advertisements on the smallest of newspapers
& alternately drifting off, tired head wavering gently to rest on my shoulder

checkered beret with long white beard
suspenders and dress clothes (in which to grocery shop?)
as if it's Eastern Europe in the 1940s
(but last I checked we were just riding the #33 through the Mission)

slight of stature, trembly and exhausted
but clear-eyed, deliberate:
each movement infinitely slow, shaking, intentional

oh shining old one!
do you know how held you are??
how cradled, how beloved!

"i wrote a little song for you
with a melody i'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme
to repeat what you already knew
as the stones thrown at your window tapped a syncopated time
you kept a distance out of fear you'd break
but what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?
the music our collisions would make
is a sound that turns the road-that-leads-us-back-home
into Home"