for mysterious reasons

for mysterious reasons

there’s a brick in the lithodora

in front of hallie’s house

which I notice from a porch chair

as I lean forward to untie my shoes

before heading in to read to her kids

this mid-october evening

and just down from it I see

a couple little lingering star-shaped

blue flowers like I saw so much

in my past when I planted this

as ground cover on home properties

I co-owned and landscaped and let go

and can now only see in the skies

I no longer navigate by

those old constellations I designed

in ignorance of life’s astronomy

and to my detriment back then

when even as I did the best I could

to stay self-aware and evolving

the right epiphanies still didn’t

hit me like a ton of bricks

because it turns out it takes ages

for just the right one to travel

from an unknown point of origin

on its long trajectory

and land right in front of me

knocking me down so to speak

with these thoughts