September 27, 2022 - Elizabeth Lerman’s “Whatever Forever Feels Like For Now”

There is a train here that goes through the trees. The first time I saw it, I thought I was dreaming and I stared at my hands for a minute, maybe two, and watched my fingers move, curled them into a fist and felt nail settle into palm. They bent like they belonged to me and so I looked up again, awake, I knew now, seeing this for certain. The green blurred by in a way I didn’t know happened here. I had never seen it stretch out that way before, never noticed all the forest trying to grow through gravel, the tracks under the bridge where something had always been blooming. I mean, I noticed, maybe, when the dog barked, when the sidewalk shook, but I didn’t know that if I stood on a platform, sat in a certain spot, and stared out a window, I would see green going by like that, didn’t know I could open my eyes, feel my fingers, and still see floating forests and I think, as I go back and forth through low hanging leaves, that I could do this forever, or, at least, whatever forever feels like for now.