By the Railroad

She comes to me in my sleep. A tattered bun tossed on top of her head spun gray and brown. Her arms glowing with a light glisten of sweat from the early summer heat. It is always evening there, a dusty sort of twilight hour where the ice tea glasses seem to echo with clinking ice cubes in the silence that surrounds us. The porch is small but there is room enough for both of us and I sit there entranced by the familiar scent of flowers and wet dirt as she rambles on. Sometimes she stops talking long enough to get up and rustle something about in the house and when she comes back out she always sits silent for a moment. Sometimes if the silence needs to be filled only by comfort I hear her humming songs I never knew I knew. Baby's boat is a silver moon is whispered into my ear even though she hums along without words sailing in the sky and I know that I do not know this song. I but yet I can feel it as part of me. Sailing o'er the sea of sleep while the clouds float by so I let it lull me contently.

I do not know why I am here. I do know that I am a visitor to this place lately at least once a week. The tea is barely sweet. The song sometimes changes. She talks about nothing and everything and I wake restless with the desire to be barefooted in dirt and surrounded by tufts of herbs and flowers. I want to eat fresh berries baked in soft warm cobbler drizzles with cream and watch the sky change before a summer storm. I wante to know a simple life and a wholeness of love that I can hear behind that soft lullaby. And I think, if I come here enough nights in a row...she might just teach me.