Before It’s Too Late

Before it’s too late,
before too many swimming holes and night herons
before topless women at Barton Spring
and movies on big screens
before a plethora of haiku refrigerators
and Jimi Hendrix references
before another bright yellow goldfinch
or black striped dragonfly,
before unexpected miracles
come to shower us like raindrops again
and before I get another great song stuck in my head
as if a mockingbird has chosen
to join the bluebird sitting on my shoulder
surrounded by the colors of morning sunrise,
high noon and evening dusk
and before another red rose, orange cosmos
or cranesbill geranium discovers itself
cradled in the palm of my hand
and lifted to my curious nose,
before more sights and sounds and smells
crowd their way into my big old house
of sensuality and serendipity
and before we find so many more new joys
and beauties and songs
than we can safely contain
in these vessels of skin and bones
and blood and hope,
let me just write down this one thought
before it is nothing but a ghost of an imaginary thought
that came to me in a dream
and has long been lost to some other idea
that was better left unspoken,
let me just say this.

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