Passing Afternoon

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds There are things we can't recall, Blind as night that finds us all Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls But my hands remember hers, rolling around the shaded ferns Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned There are names across the sea, only now I do believe Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone