The scent of smoldering leaves, the wail of steamers. Two lovers in the park who walk like dreamers”
–“These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)”

It’s always playing somewhere:
It’s playing on a quay in a distant capital,
and in a bar where you’re still allowed to smoke
– almost required to, in fact. It’s playing on a movie soundtrack,
tagging along with the image at the edge of the celluloid
like Christmas lights along the gables. It’s playing
on “a tinkling piano in the next apartment,
those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant.” 

On the foolish list are the things we treasure
because we know we shouldn’t, because we fear
that someday we’ll forget: the cadence of a lover’s breath,
or the way fall feels in a park in the rain. Forget
and we’re left only with what’s happening now,
which should feel important, but doesn’t.
“Oh, how the ghost of you clings,” or so we hope.

I wonder why lovers dream in songs and we sigh,
whereas in the waking life dreaming means
wanting something that likely will never come,
like justice or a better job, and in sleep
dreams make sense so seldom that people
just chuckle about them at breakfast.

It’s always raining in October. Far
from any seashore, gray is not a color,
not a blanket, but a silence you could drink.
It’s always chilly in the park. That’s why
nobody’s here and it’s such a good place to go. 

Please, tell me your name again.

Richard Terrill is a former student and instructor at UW-Eau Claire. He is the winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry and the Associated Writing Programs Award for nonfiction. “These Foolish Things” first appeared in the collection What Falls Away Is Always: Poems and Conversations. For more by Richard, search for his name at volumeone.org or visit richardterrill.com.