Poem: Beautiful World

Sitting on a bench beside a Scottish canal, watching the locks rising and the Lochs glowing

he crossed his legs and placed his hands upon worn corduroy wales that had seen much of the civilized world.

“It’s a beautiful world,” he said, smiling, an eternal boy

peering from behind octogenarian eye-creases.  “It’s a beautiful world. And I’ll miss it.”

He nodded. I nodded.

I knew what he meant, although I couldn’t.

Now, when the air and light are just so, a kind of thunderous grey found in the better Highland storms,

when the electrical charge that binds us all to the universal grid crackles with possibilities,

of revolution, of romance,

when I look to the sky and see everywhere I’ve been and everyone I’ve loved,

I know I’ve had a beautiful life.

And I’ll miss it.