from NYWC workshop. "what I save" 10 minutes.

I save books and the stories, the poems they contain. I save the images they've given me of storms and disaster of heartbreak and birth of war and the morning light through the mist at dawn. I save the smell of spruce and the way juniper always makes me sneeze, the creak of the leather of a horse's saddle. I save the kick of the horse's hoof and the hardness of the mountain trail where I first fell. I save the terror of my first kiss and the pleasure of my first time. I save the brown, the blue, the green eyes - angry and cold or smiling. I save their shoulders and the rhythm of their hearts beating against my ear in the long stretches between sleep and morning. I save shoes I can no longer wear and running in them on midnight streets. I save handwritten phone numbers, directions, maps and borrowed kisses.  I save all the nights I could not sleep and all the mornings I slept in. The sound of pine needles falling on tent roofs, the smell and warmth of an old flannel sleeping bag. I save the smell of libraries and old books and the sneezes they bring. I save the smell of bookstores (I don't mean the coffee) and the smell of new books. I save papercuts and limes in seltzer, paths to the summit and superhighways. I save all the hours down in the depths of the Canyon and all the hours back up. I save the stars at night big as my hand and the shooting stars in Maine and Vermont.  I save Mars big as a quarter and the rain on the roof of the observatory in Flagstaff. I save their smiles and laughter and the shaper pain when each of them died. I save foreign coins and pennies. I save paperclips and manuscripts. I save water damaged photographs and playbills chewed on by the cat. I save the last time and the first and all the days in between. I save the wail of sirens on 2nd Avenue and the smell and the falling ash. I save the taste of a cold beer after a long hike. I save berries picked from bushes along the trail. I save their sweetness.

(c) 2009