Old Soul

I don't want anything new.
Not today.

I want venerable, worn-in shoes,
frayed, soft sweaters, wool hats,
and hand-sewn quilts that show their age
now, just as I do.

I want grey-haired dogs to lie beside me
with snores like prayers.
I'd light the lamp and browse through piles
of carefully hoarded books,
sipping phrases like spirits:
old stories of Russians and Turks;
grizzled bears and wind.

I need to walk
on a time-worn mountain,
where pines cluster on the saddle,
and I'd follow them down through draws
where the larkspurs grow.

I want my mother back
with her lake-blue loving eyes and old soul,
just as she used to be.

If only I could hear that first song
of the meadowlark -
trilling innocence into blue-white sky
so many years ago.

I'd run out into the new morning
and never look back.