His thoughts were summer bound,
                           all on highways
                                            kinder times.
The sun was being kind this morning;
a few rays finding him and
                  staying with him.
The old man knew, had known,
so many secret springs
                          and summers too
that building one more in his head
hardly taxed or took away
from architecture long in place.
No new plans were needed
for renovations done by rote.

Sunlight still.
                     A little more.
The afternoon ahead
might not stop or come at all.
He'd be left in morning always.
Forever is a mind-set.
                  Always a trap.
And afternoon is merely something
                           that precedes
the darkest and forever night.

Waldo rose and put the kettle on,
took the final crackers from
                         the biscuit tin,
fed the cats and let the dog in
                             from the yard.

From the kitchen window,
                     out beyond the elms,
                             the old dead oak,
he thought he saw a new road
                            coming forward
stretching through the greenery
                                 to meet him.
The kettle whistled
               and he closed the blind.