How I remember that long weekend in Phoenix hosted by a realtor
       We found who showed us houses and neighborhoods
Swept across a clean desert under a fine mountain park.

A discerning weekend: these Latin styles, these schools and shopping and thoroughfares,
       Prairie and the crags nearby, colored in rosées and oranges,
This temperate January. Hurrying here and here; then time to go.

We were sitting together on the floor of the airport, side by side, 
       Before boarding, phones in a charger dug out of a packed bag
(Such a need to send text messages to family far away),

When we approached in departure a decision that could change our lives.
       Travelers stepped knowingly over our out-thrust legs 
As we talked, the excitement dazzle like a sunset in our eyes.

Shall we buy a property here? In the southwest? A winter home,
       Far from frigid Alberta, work-place indignities, inter-marriage stresses,
A pretty place just for us that we could but afford?

And you were already buckling yourself into practicalities.
       (And me all for becoming with you in this valley of pastels
A recluse.) So that the conversation became tense, terse: 

There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more! 
       Let's be merry and young and warm in the winters, 
Thus-wise abiding meaningless daily cuts that dissever deep;

Forget not the maintenance costs, the Canadian exchange rate,
       The few vacation days we have together, the meubles, the taxes, 
Obligations to family and friends... Du mußt dein 

Leben ändern... as if I could read, scribbled in the white streets 
       Under the wing at take-off, this one verse that defined a generation 
Of American poets, as the aeroplane hove North and flew.

It is a memory that stays with me a decade now and more:
       That possible Phoenix House, a property of red
For who we are: a rock shading for us not fear but sweet allure. 

Whence we bore through the night, rankled, you in the middle seat,                                                                                                    
       Me on the window, chimeras of towns on the northwestern plains
Islanding below a haunted black expanse until Calgary, where
       Our two babies slept in the bed of their grandmother.

Sept 23, 2021