Slow Lilac

A new spruce blocks the view
of some neighbors' houses from where I stand,
looking at the mossy shed
against the towering pitch pines.

I am trying a trick where I
memorize an image to carry with me,
the sky is featureless gray as
night is coming and this is not so easy,
too many careful flowers, hand laid stones
around the stepped pond,
twin birch trees bowing over a wood lawn chair,
the lawn in the completely delicate air.

My memory is just flashes like this anyway,
no idea how I got past the split rail fence,
can't follow the path to when
we ate dinner, drank hot tea,
and I must have walked the dog,
yes?  And did we talk?

I know that early morning crows
skimmed the wet road with their bright prizes,
there was an old oak
and at the corner road, a slow lilac,
which reminds me my father died
and that is how I arrived
in his yard under this gray sky.