This is the day.
This is the day we played volleyball
in the field behind the farmhouse.
The net was strung between two wooden posts
that left it sagging in the middle
like a hammock napping between two trees.
We didn’t have any chalk lines to mark the boundaries
and if you missed on a serve
the other team tossed the ball back to you.
It started with just a few of us
but as the people at the picnic table
scarfed down the last forkfuls of pasta
they began wandering onto the field.
There wasn’t a pause in the action to absorb new people;
they just walked into play
and waited for the right moment to rise up
to spike the ball back down to earth.
We didn’t keep score;
the only yardsticks we used to measure our performance
were the whack of skin against cloth
the whistle of the ball skimming across the net
and the laughter of a dozen voices
when it bounced off of someone’s head
or landed in the tall grass by the garden.
This is the day that will linger in my mind
like the setting sun that blankets the Green Mountains of Vermont
with a rainbow comforter knitted from a million warm colors.
We went skinny dipping with the tadpoles.
We watched movies in the media room
and passed around a big bowl of popcorn.
We sat in a circle in the classroom
then we circled up again around the campfire
to listen to the strumming of a guitar
and the heartbeat of a drum.
But today, when no one was around
I paused next to the strawberry patch
to look up at the sky.
I was lost in all of those electric colors for I don’t know how long
but then I was blasted out of the sky by a question.
What about tomorrow?
The guitar sang about teargas and pepperspray
and I could see the volleyball anarchists in the streets
arms locked together, staring down a line of
black-clad storm troopers with gas masks and face plates.
I could see faces torn away from the campfire
and thrown down on the road
eyes bloodshot from too much driving and not enough coffee
with empty pockets and burning muscles.
I could see them in their schools, their town halls,
passing out tri-fold pamphlets on streetcorners
and shuffling back to a dark, empty shell of an apartment
without anyone looking them in the eye.
Tomorrow may bring us another game of volleyball
or it may crush our collective throats with a shiny black boot.
Either way, today I look at the faces that surround me
and I can’t help smiling.
This is the day I will carry with me,
and this is the day that will carry me home.