There is a cloud cast moon
thirty years old.
Still the light shifts the shadows
from time to time
and I find the 
purple mountains,
the wild redbud across the hills
I knew so well.

In the moon of memory
you appear,
old friend,
bright skin,
eyes laughing,
singing suzaphone lines
as you turn and twirl
down the road.

I will always love you,
you said,
our futures pulling us
away from the strawberries
in your backyard,
long past
the long drives
in the long black '57 Ford
under the diamond stars
of the north.

You left,
then I left,
and now when I return
a white moon waits.
A warm wind
carries the stars across
the old deep river,
carries the full deep pink of redbud
across the constant hills.
I stand so still,
listening,
as the blossoms are blown
and then laid down,
the petals scattered
in my heart.