Spring Break
Outside the window, tendrils finger
brick and crumpled mortar,
bits of brown leaves and paper circle
trees, bent backward by a hurricane breeze.
Erratic sprouts push through spongy soil,
spatter gray with green, poised
for life, they await the sun.
Time stretches endlessly;
each one loves me as they can,
unfettered by doubt
when living inside a stolen moment,
inside a world known only to we two.
In these moments, they live to know me,
in the next, not know me at all.
Alone now in my epiphany--
this, I do to myself.
Life rumbles by in a Metra train,
marks ten minutes at a time,
scattering random thoughts
of what is past, passing
or yet to come; still hopeful,
I prepare for the journey home.
--Tina Hoffman
(Copywrite 2001)
