As if no time had passed at all, 
we sit on lawn chairs on my front porch, 
a small town thing to do 
on a summer evening 
such as this, and soak-in the palpable air.

The sounds of children playing far 
off out of sight, 
the occasional car slowly passing, 
this could have been a similar summer 
when I was becoming callow.

Then my mother would give me 
a saved canning jar, 
and I would leap kid-like 
around the yard snatching fireflies 
that blinked on and off like ephemeral stars,

just as they are doing this evening 
as the sun we face deepens red 
and begins to set. 
And she draws my attention north 
where long cloud-streams of pink and baby blu

covered with layers of encroaching lavender 
take our breaths into the sky. 
There, beyond high 
power lines, swifts, or are they swallows? 
dart and twinkle catching insects.

This has been a long century 
since her grandparents homesteaded these plains, 
her father a teacher, her mother a poet. 
And this is our sunset, 
even when we cannot see the other's face.