I Make No Note Of Faces

featured in the book Good Day with the art of Gale Whitman

Out the door into the sun,
I give my plants their inspection,
pull a weed,
admire a bloom,
ponder our next collaboration,
walk west
    (a few beer glasses on the lawn next door)
past the young spruce
    (thirty feet high)
that challenges my right to the sidewalk,
past two spindly green ash.
    (replacements for lost elms)

I Make No Note of Faces

Bob Komives

At the corner,
I do not meet the neighbor who yesterday said,
“Open that umbrella; it's not a walking stick!”
I did as I was told.
    (I was off on a long walk through the rain.)
I smile at this reflection and cross the street
enjoying the aromatic, chromatic benefits
of yesterday's twenty-hour soak.
I pass by the day-care center where kids play
and by the fraternity where they still play.
    (Though sand-filled volleyball court stands empty.)
Another street to cross,
I appreciate the new stripes and dashes
    (white and yellow)
that now give the street more authority over me
and over the cars and bikes that cross my path.
As I leave the curb
a white car accelerates.
    (from the traffic light one block to the north)
I jog a couple of steps,
then slow to a walk,
then stare that nuisance into deceleration.
On the far side,
I enjoy again one of the nicest houses in town,
valiantly and proudly holding its beauty
    (and its look of home)
in a block that has searched for identity
the twenty years that I have known it.
Along the wrought-iron fence
    (too low to keep in the great dane)
I wonder why the dogs stay inside.
Past another blue spruce and across an alley
I approach the avenue.
At the corner on my right
is a once-gas-station adult bookstore.
    (well-kept)
To my left,
is a once-mom-and-pop once-pizza now-pawn shop.
    (well-kept, but kept ugly)
Now I confront the barrier that divides east from west.
Beyond lies a square mile of university.
It is nine-thirty.
With no pause
    (by me nor by the traffic)
I cross four lanes and set my own path
across the broad, damp lawn on the other side.
No students toss frisbees this morning.
Few cars sit in the parking lot
that sits in my way
and sits where Old Main once stood.
    (where rumors linger as to how it burned)
Up and over
    (a not so “crooked stile”)
I cross the Burlington Northern track.
    (no train in sight)
Into the old heart of campus
I skirt one quadrant
of the grass-filled, tree-lined oval
past several pieces in a set of buildings
that await recognition, preservation and maintenance.
    (an historic district)
The buildings sit on land
that one hundred and fifty years ago
had not sprouted its first crop of wheat.
Here,
my walk joins the walks of others.
They do not quite hurry to where they choose to go.
Perhaps they too feel
    (after four weeks of rain)
that it is more important to notice than to hurry.
    (Noticing does slow us down.)
We hurried out this morning.
    (into the sun)
We'll be damned if we'll now hurry in.
I note this rhythm.
    (strange, but)
I make no note of faces.
This is a day for smells and for colors.
    (And this is a day for spaces.)

Bob Komives :: Fort Collins © 1998 :: I Make NO Note Of Faces ::  ,9512