Into His Twilight

I visit you like an old friend
Well acquainted with your ordinary ways
Of telling a story fit for any occasion.
We sit like stones on the wooden porch
As the last gleams of sunlight die away behind
The rounded hills of my youth, and
I pause for a minute or two half-expecting
Your smile to slowly slip from view.
You nod — and my mind trips down
Those dimly-remembered paths of other stories,
Other twilit times at the lake
Poised on rickety metal chairs painted
The color of rust.
It all comes down to this
You seem to be saying, and as the silence
Closes in with the impending night
I realize that you never promised anything more.

for Pépère