These Things Are Good

Concrete and granite: these two feel good
to the fingers, and to the back when you lean against
a sun-warmed wall. Match your weight against
their mass, and let your bones know
that these things are good.

                                                    And the odor of jasmine in spring
blowing in the gusts of this busy street
fills the lungs with colors of the sky, obliterates
even the cacophony of motors, tires, and horns that overwhelms
the sidewalk. A planter by a blank wall, the odor of jasmine:
these things are good.

On the curb, a hand inscribed this boast: Julio Loves Ellen...
twenty years ago or more. How weary the hand that wrote that now, how
weary the heart.... How it is a blessing to read it and know
that he loved her, that he loved, that love waits
on a forgotten corner for our eyes to find. I tell you now,
these things are good.