We buried cousin Verl last month.
I agreed to go to his funeral in Chicago.
Verl made a new life for himself up there,
raised his own little family.

Afterwards we all took the city bus
to the downtown and walked, looking up
at the tall buildings on the crowded Magic Mile.
That's what I thought they called it. Stover
still tries to get my goat about that mistake.
I remember thinking how much I wanted
to get back, to check on the dogs and fences
and just sit in our front porch swing
with my Instant Maxwell House.

But there was something else.
Low clouds off the big lake played
around the tops of those silent towers,
like the mist on chilly mornings at home.
Streets took off in every direction.
Tiny parks, flowers, trees, city birds.
A man might walk there by himself,
like fishing all day along the creek.
Walk and look and fish and think, and sit
when he gets a little tired.

I have thought about it a lot.
Some nice Saturday morning I'll drive
up to Lexington and park on a street
and just take off walking.