“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Browning

Grace is in town from New York for a few days and she and I are bigtime strolling buddies. We love to walk and talk and since the weather is so glorious lately, what better reason to play hooky? We loaded up the backpack and went downtown yesterday and walked the streets most of the day yammering, gossiping and looking at the dozens of sleek new high-rises going up. The sounds of construction are everywhere (and a plus: cute construction workers too!).

We wound up trolling the brick-paved streets of the historic district where we both lived in the 1980s. We passed by a few places where she used to live and places I used to live, my first garage apartment, my first studio, her old boyfriend's apartment, my old boyfriend's apartment. Grace is thinking about investing in a condo downtown but our feet took us to the old neighborhood as we ambled and she grew wistful talking about the guy who broke her heart 15 years ago because he was constitutionally incapable of monogamy. I listened. I had nothing to say about that. The guy in question had a catastrophic stroke a year ago and so the man who was once her untamable lover is now pretty much a drooling turnip. He exists no more, really. Woulda-shoulda-coulda becomes excruciating for me sometimes, even when they are not my woulda-shoulda-couldas. They hit way too close to home, that's all I'm saying. There is no worse ache than an old ache.

We stopped to meet friends for lunch at a Thai place and later rendezvoused with more friends at a pub on the waterfront for drinks (no martini for me, thank you, I learned my lesson--back to the Janis Joplin cocktail--Southern Comfort and Diet Coke, two cherries).

We passed a young man who was writing poetry in colored chalk on the sidewalk. He told us he is in love. I gave him a few dollars and wished him luck. He handed me a xeroxed copy of his latest poetry. The title: "Between My Lips and The City Lights." He said "Here's one that looks like you," and pointed to a poem titled "Euphoria." I asked him if I could put it up on my blog and he said "Yeah, 'cause you know what? It looks like you." So here is Jacob's poem:

I am coming back to you soon
If you will have me
So let us leave it to Fate
To arrange the coincidence
Of our togetherness

I saw you today
How beautiful you looked
Lost in the distance
Of so long a silence
I wondered what you were thinking
And if in those thoughts
You still contemplate the possibility
If you still recall
Those tangerine nights
When the very air we breathed
Hummed with a vibrant sweetness
So delectable, so instantaneously surreal
Everything Alive
As we walked through
The humble night
We knew it then, didn't we?