Adelaide B. Shaw

The Final Visit

The old man, as brown and crinkled as a walnut shell, walks with a straight back and a firm stride.  He has a purpose.  A visit home, the land of his birth, most assuredly, his final visit.  This time he is alone.  Who is there to go with him?  She is gone, and his children have other lives with other claims.

Once more he will shade his eyes against the light over the bay, the blue water dazzling in its intensity.  He will squint and focus his attention to the peak of the volcano rising above the cloud ring near the top.  Once more he will loosen his tongue and speak his native language and tell the wonders of his life in the new world and reminisce about the old as it once was.  Once more he will walk the narrow lanes where, as a boy, he ran wild.

October rain–
his last pill dissolving
into a dream