Wind Flowers
by
James Seamarsh

There are flowers in the pear trees; white. I smell a mix of sticky sweet and acrid green. Petals fall like snow, covering the sidewalk, swirling, revealing eddies in the breeze. The wind is cold, from the north, not yet spring, no longer winter. The sun rises bright and clear, a reddish-yellow blob of smile balm, unobstructed by threats of precipitation.

"Remember everything," I tell Susie, give her a hug, then leave her at the front entrance to the high school. She is my youngest daughter, a senior taking anatomy, studying the muscle system with flash cards on the way to school. She heads for class, I for the Aqus Café .

I walk at a fast clip, taking long steps, pushing my heart to beat faster. My hands are clenched, fingers around thumbs, clinging to muscle heat. The equinox was last Friday, but the nights seem longer than they should be. The sun is several widths above Sonoma Mountain by the time I get to the D-Street bridge. I turn right on Water Street without looking in on the river.

Cobblestones are carefully packed between train tracks, waiting for the revival of rapid transit in the form of a tourist train. I walk the rail. The pack on my back leaves me off-balance and awkward. Certainly, my clumsiness has nothing to do with a 55th birthday in August. There was a time when I could balance on that narrow two-inch strip of steel with my eyes closed. No matter, the sun’s reflection lights the shiny strips into bright-white brush strokes on a black-asphalt canvas.

Crossing a large drainage pipe on a bridge of wooden planks, I enjoy the uneven surface, worn through the years, leaving only the toughest fibers, knobs known as knots, polished smooth by so many treads. Deep cracks and rotting nail holes harbinger eventual disintigration, splinter by splinter, falling into the river. Does this old bridge revel in its bumpy ride out to sea?

"The usual?" she asks.

"Hot chocolate, please."

I enjoy the solitude of the busy cafe, surrounded by noisy tables, filled with my cohort, old songs playing as background, trapped in time, passengers on the same bus.