Midnight Mile

Stroke of midnight..Leila, Basha and I are on the snow covered running track at Smith..the air is clean and cold..I show them Paradise Pond and the boathouse..I tell Basha about the ceremonies at the mental hospital, with Bach's Magnificat playing from speakers all over the empty building..I look at his eyes and see him imagining it..Leila's black cape flaps in the wind and she is wearing a Russian hat that makes her look like Lara from Dr.Zhivago..Basha challenges me to a race around the snowy track..I'm too full of good will to be aggressive..I point out the Holyoke Range as we round the tennis courts ..memory of lying with Jasmine on the green slope of the lacrosse field, both of us in jogging shorts, perspiring after a run..the world was a perfect blue that summer day as we lay there watching a small plane lazily make its way across the Massachusetts sky..