Watching the Seasons
Him being more your uncle than mine, you’re close kin and me only poor relations, I thought it best you talk first when he began about his property, leaving a will, what would happen to the land.
Imagine you’d be thinking about horses. You aways been talking about them since you were little. Playing horses. Dreaming horses. Talking horses and living on a farm.
I wasn’t thinking about anything. Coming back and Janie being gone. I didn’t like to think about past or future, they both hurt, so I left them alone.
We signed up together right after she got out of high school. I was a year behind
and quit. So we were GI Joe and GI Jane. Come back in a couple of years, have some money, get a place. Maybe she’d go to school. I’d need a job, farm on the side for us.
We coulda been a commercial on the TV. High school sweethearts off to war, except Janie got killed. Some fool Lieutenant got them all blown up and not half of her come home. Not from the weight of that government rubber bag.
Knew you’d take more than you should from your uncle, but not in a thieving way.
More than your share, is all. You best move in now. Learn your way around, and
no lie, he needs the help.
I’ll stay on, you want. Keep to myself, and watch the seasons.
Hard sometimes, trying to forget and remember at the same time.
Doug Mathewson