Knowing This Place

from Out With Lanterns

Among the things I know best is 
this stretch of street and sidewalk,
this one I’ve lived on for twenty years.
How every morning it’s the same characters–
the man with coffee, baguette, and off-leash dog, 
the nurse in scrubs walking to the hospital,
how there’s a tree root pulling up one panel.
How the pistache trees are still young, but
one already bends under an old acacia’s shadow. 
I know that at half past eight on weekday mornings, 
kids trot across the street, backpacks bouncing, 
and at dusk, skunks wander uphill hunting grubs. 
I know when someone’s getting a delivery,
the sound of a truck rattling up the hill,
and I know when Natalie across the street
takes her two tiny dogs for a pee, her creaking
door’s unmistakable clonk. Knowing a piece of land
this well is like having an old friend. We both know 
that the crows fly west at sunset in autumn, 
and that in summer the red eyed night herons 
fly east, bed down in the cemetery where 
more and more of my friends now rest too. 
There is something to be said for staying put,
for knowing what to expect outside these windows, 
for watching it all go.

Photo by SnapSaga on Unsplash