If you follow the curve of the next two blocks, you’ll find rusted out American cars, tree-lined streets, guitar playing neighbors and little boys digging for China but getting distracted by automatic sprinklers before they can get there.

At least, on Sundays you will.

At least, on this Sunday you would have.

Count the swings you pass and see if they are as numerous as the colors on the trees.

Try to remember the name of that German artist when you pass the red house and why it reminds you of him.

Contemplate stealing your neighbor’s red roses, but leave them behind (always leave them behind).

Open Jane Candia Coleman’s collection of poetry on the American West and write down the first thing you see.

I closed the doors and left them…

Bureaus, chairs, a good iron stove.

But roses? Scarlet bergamot?

The blue spikes of rosemary?

Leave those quick and lovely children?

So I brought them…seeds, slips, roots

wrapped against weather, nurtured

in my apron pocket.

No one will say I must abandon them

to lighten the load.

I will disappoint the thieves,

impress the Indians with holy madness

for I touch them like rosary,

repeat their names and know with each

a day, a moment gladly spent.

And each day’s march has precedent

for Mormons brought the seeds

of sunflowers to mark their way,

stout wives in wagons flinging gold behind,

and now the whole trail’s yellow,

firmly rooted in fragility.

Make a mental note to leave a trail of gold wherever you go and to remember those days and moments gladly spent.