You know you’re running
a bit short of tomorrows
when the bands of your youth
are all playing farewell tours
and those days you sang
I believe in yesterday
in both English and Spanish
out the car windows now leave you
with an eerie emptiness so

lately you’ve determined it’s best
to try and live in the moment
catching what the mental health
professionals’ call ‘glimmers’
those micro-moments that
are pure serendipity and sparkle
unsuspectingly across your senses:

–a fresh cup of good coffee
–a peach newly picked from orchards
reborn after last year’s frost
killed the entire crop
–the stoicism of the grower
generous with his optimism
–the heron mincing down the road
for a quarter mile ahead of you
creeping forward in the truck
–hummingbirds at a friend’s feeder
as you trade squash for blackberries

bits to assemble at close of day
like a jigsaw puzzle locking
into place, yesterdays remembered
tomorrows ephemeral as a butterfly’s wings
and now you and the heron moving
forward northbound, same road.