There were the leaves giggling over the blanket in the shade, new eyes widening and turning, stretching to see who was speaking, there was the baby seat in the back of the Mustang, horsepower, paint, chrome, and rubber, speed again, the sensation of speed and forces acting upon me, projectile, traveller, Moon and Meteorite looking to overcome gravity again, there were roses and clover and a grandmother’s mighty wing, there was grandfather keeping the clocks wound every day, a key to wind each clock kept where even he had to climb a ladder to reach, a clock over the mantel and a clock over the kitchen, the rest of the house oblivious to time but for the paint cracking outside, there was the garden, the greenhouse, and the grapes, there were the train tracks, there were the footpath, the bridge, and that secret way that went across, still secret the gateway gone now with the hedges, there was the ice cream parlor on the other side of the tracks, the other side of town, there were towns made of sides and lines, blocks and squares, there were the girls on the curb and the boy on his bicycle circling their question in the street, there was pencil lead in his knee and an ancients’ tale of Achilles in all the Histories, there was a Guardian named Major with rows of shining teeth, there was the blood we tasted together, there were the assassin’s daughter and the bomb-sitter’s son, and grandma called it puppy love, there were mosquito bites and bee stings, bruises, cuts, and breaks, lots of stitches, there were spiders and snakes twice bitten, there was a Goliath with keyhole eyes and a lost David now unwritten, flames like I’d never seen, smoke so dark and foul stole my breath, the sky smiled but I couldn’t watch its vultures dive into the first burning eye, no doors but there were windows to open, riders waiting in the trees, there were always trees and fresh air, just outside there was always the dragonfly, there were rides through the country just for the breeze, there were deer in the fields by day and the coyote by night, there were the bullfrogs in the canal and the turtles by the creek, there was the smell of spent shells, there were rabbit tracks through the snow off into the bramble, there were life and death both in the woods where they would so often meet, there was always the owl in the trees, whether bare and silver or green and lush with leaves, there were feathers, always feathers falling everywhere, gifts, there was always the wind of course, always, and if the wind didn’t move the leaves then I saw to it that they did indeed, there was always a bike or something with wheels nearby, there was always speed, there was always momentum could use gathering, wings and seeds, gravity doesn’t defy itself, there was always the drive to escape, there was forever orbiting wanting to break free, there were all the worlds still to explore, there were the clocks across time and galaxies that need winding, there were always the keys in our pockets, there were always places to be, there were all the suns that require turning, there is so much light we cannot see, there are all these keys, there were all these questions to stop asking but I never did, it’s not my place, there are the clocks ticking away if ever I stand that still, gathering, there are new maps to be made, charts require ink, time is such a tiny thing in pockets this big.