19. Remembering San Diego

Beneath the breathless, weary stars,
acknowledged by the phantom breeze,
We rode at day’s end side by side,
unwinding in the crowded cart.

In silence sat the docile night,
but we were not as well-behaved.
The infants wailed and adults cooed;
mementos could not pacify.

Exhausted by the lurid day
and whistling in the lukewarm wind,
The palm trees, finally satisfied,
were gossiping along the way.

There are no flashing coloured lights
that dance upon this final eve;
No cheery costumed characters
are looming swiftly into sight -

But as we stop upon our start,
a strange relief begins to dawn.
And as those rising, bright balloons
float, twinkling near the moon-kissed stars,

There was no greater grand enchantment
that filled our hearts that midnight hour;
As moon-flecks shone upon our arms,
the journey really’d just begun.