I have found you in the story again. Is there another word for "divine"? I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.

If I think behind me I might break. If I think forward I lose now.

Forever will be a day like this. Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.

Slightly overcast. Yellow leaves.

Your jacket hanging in the hallway.

Next to mine. ~Joy Harjo (From Fall Song)

It's been awhile. Since I saw my husband. I would know him anywhere. Know his eyes, green smiling crescents above the blue mask he wore after a long flight over the ocean. Love and marriage is powered by mystery. Giovanni and I felt that indefinable energy as we fell back into our rhythm with each other. Sometimes, for me, it is tempting to look too far ahead. How will we figure out this next season of our lives? Retirement is new, and there are many hoops to jump through regarding finances and health and assembling two cultures. Then I think of all the hurdles we've already jumped through. The immigration loop was enough to toughen up the strongest of individuals. Thinking back or looking too far ahead is anxiety provoking. Surely now will be lost if I reside in those thinking patterns. I must imagine stringing a necklace of days with colorful beads that inhabit the present.

The sky this morning as it filtered through the window, clouds suffused with pink light, like delicate floating peonies.

The smell of hazelnut coffee sipped in companionable silence with my husband.

A brisk walk, able to move and breathe. Mental poise.

Two bikes now sit on our back porch. One tall, the other shorter. Pumpkins arranged on front steps sat on weathered clapboard houses as we drove down a gravel road to look at the bikes. Cloudy skies overhead. Leaves turning yellow and crimson. My husband bargained hard. The old southern gentleman who sold the bikes to us said, "Well, okay. Better to have them being used than just sitting in my shed."

And we'll ride them. 

My fingers grip each memory of this fall day, like a bead I'd place on a silver strand. Each glistening orb like the mercy of God.