Joshua Keiter

Some words about mistakes made early on
the radio played while I was driving 
into the future and home this evening 
thinking of all the steps never taken 
why the car behind me has their brights on
they can’t see anything this close to me 
why is the future something before us 
when all we can see is what lies behind 
retrospect is the lesser nostalgia 
when all the time hindsight is so last year
the days are filling up again which makes 
the gaps so reticent in their absence 
at one point we thought the quiet was nice 
then we had to respond to all the noise

Seeing those pictures from the farewell tour 
seems we have leaped far into the future 
the text from those memes claiming the year of 
your birth is as far from World War Two as 
it is from now just another cruel joke 
played by the decades on the years as if 
to say it is all accelerating 
this pandemic lasting nine months times two 
overtaken the hundred year old one 
not in proportion to population 
leave that up to our imaginations 
the people we have not seen grown so old
visible now as a moth to a flame 
loss is just another word for our name

Did not have the time to take a picture 
of the deer close to the path on our walk
instead the camera captured blurry 
leaves and stones that might have been foraged if 
that dog had not come walking behind us
sending the deer away into the woods 
where they might have rejoined the family 
we have been seeing further from the path 
perhaps a mother with two of her own 
minding their business as we like to do 
along this path until we see creatures 
who might just find a way to outlive us 
if retreat is any indication 
they depend upon us staying away

I could remember the first home I left
because it was the first house that I missed 
the constant feeling of being bereft 
knowing you own only what you resist 
how many friends are gone along the way
the paths you didn’t know that you would take 
memories are too flexible to stay 
in one place long enough for them to make 
a journey within not walking distance 
roads too easy for you alone to tread 
companions they make all the difference 
the crumbs you leave become your daily bread 
I pick you up each time we cannot meet
the closed circle a new friend may complete

When I hear the score to the musical 
I think of when I first listened to it 
on a library record player my 
first year of college it was not homework 
for I had no idea where home might be
I might have been avoiding my roommate 
(algorithms would have chosen better)
just a young kid I was with too long hair
wondering what the songs would sound like 
in a phase of life I had not known yet 
neither single nor yet getting married 
but following all the chords and the rhymes 
flowing so fast before they could arrive 
lacking company for being alive