Time Passages (borrowed from a song)

He stood at the corner of the street watching the crossing signal.  His faded eyes had watched signals throughout the ages and they faithfully bore him safely through the joys of love and the trials of war.  His eyes had watched the signs as his loved ones traveled down many life roads.  He watched as the signs of the end came in the life of his loving wife.  He learned, through watching, the peace that comes with age.

Leaning heavily on the gnarled top of his birchwood cane, he waited with the patience of ages written on each line of his face.  His shoulders hunched with the weight of the passage of years, but his back remained strong beneath his tattered woolen coat.  White hair peeked secretively from beneath a golfer's cap, well worn from many a day on the open green.  And yet his hair skittered hesitantly away in the chilly evening breeze, afraid to be caught in the fast moving currents that could ruffle it from it’s impeccable place.
 
         The signal came at last and his step into the street was strong.  Committed with a strength that belied his narrow feet, clad in black leather loafers tied tightly to his soles.  A snarling wolfish wind whipped his pants about his legs, but never did his steps falter.  Crossing first one lane and then the other, he moved into the shadow of a building that darkened the street, never fearing the worrisome wind that whipped his coat about him, tearing at the three top buttons securely seated in their holes.

         His crossing was unhurried and heedless of impatient stares of drivers waiting on his progress.  The first he ignored, but to the second, with her impatient beep, he simply smiled a friendly smile and touched the brim of his hat as if to say, “You have a nice day too.” 

         The parking meter, perched precariously close to the curb signified his arrival at the other side.  He reached out to steady his climb up the steps on this side of the street.  Their hight posing a final obstacle to his goal.  A grace from deep within his aged bones bore him up and over that last hurdle as the cars rushed forward under their own signal to continue the journey. 

         A single dark green park bench, ornate and gaudy, beckoned him to enjoy it’s meager comforts.  Hard though the wooden seat was on his thinly muscled rear, he sat, relieving his legs of the pressure of so hastily across the road.  A tiring trek it was, though far shorter than most he’d made in his life.  He sighed in reflection as he waited.

         Moments passed and the sun slipped below the mountainous horizon and the natural light on the street began to dim.  I watched him as he sat, waiting for what I was quite unaware.  But slowly he began to fade from sight.  At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but as I watched I realized I was seeing the passage of a soul, leaving only his gnarled birchwood cane leaning against the building behind him and the skittering leaves that piled beneath the seat.