Familiar sun glances

    across deep summer sky,

    and rests gently

    on our golden home.

Soon we will be bathed,

    all faces bright,

    in bonfire's amber glow.

As we soak in the nectar of night,

    and embers dance before our eyes:

Dad,

    will you share

    the telling with me,

    again?

How the owls and the moon

    bear witness to,

    and rejoice in,

    another day fully lived?

Will you recall for me our holidays,

    traveling by gravel and sunsets

    to Mama's parent's farm?

I was small,

    and I remember pulling in near midnight,

    and being greeted with coffee and cards.

Now older, with aching in my bones,

    I desire to know at depths too great to forget,

if these memories of good nights and homes

    will blend their edges together,

    becoming dappled panoramas,

    living,

    and dependable as stone.

For I have decided:

    I do not wish to disappear.

I want to stay, mixed,

    living in our hot laughter, quiet joy, and somber tears;

I want to be fixed,

    and have my place be permanent at home,

    and age well with like blood and bones;

to swing, freely like a strong and simple leaf,

    on our great family tree,

    firmly rooted to the branch above;

and with the owls and moon,

    to be bathed in the gentle,

    golden setting sun.