Salt dried on these fingers forty years
Red dust cakes my boots then disappears
Lamp glass cold against my calloused palm
Adobe walls breathe out a steady calm
The beam cut clean through fog and crashing wave
The heat slips off the mesa like a slave
Brass key turns in air where no door stands
Heavy in my palm like shifting sands
No lock to catch no frame to hold
Just stories that the wind has told
Kerosene smell clings to wool and skin
Piñon smoke curls where the night begins
Clockwork gears still turn inside my chest
Pocket watch stopped at the pueblo crest
One flash every ten seconds through the gale
One key turns slow in dust beyond the pale
Brass key turns in air where no door stands
Heavy in my palm like shifting sands
No lock to catch no frame to hold
Just stories that the wind has told
Storm nights I counted waves against the rock
Quiet days I count the ticks of the clock
Fog horn moaned low like a dying beast
Harmonica sighs in the desert east
Logbook pages marked with ink and salt
Register pages torn and weathered halt
Brass key turns in air where no door stands
Heavy in my palm like shifting sands
No lock to catch no frame to hold
Just stories that the wind has told
You held the light for strangers on the sea
I hold the keys for travelers wild and free
Different shores same weight inside the hand
Different sands same lines across the land
Brass turns to gold in morning desert sun
The keeping done the keeping just begun
Retirement tastes like brine and rusted chain
Sabbatical tastes like dust on the high plain
No tower stairs to climb at midnight bell
No porch light swings to guide through heaven's hell
Just this key that fits no lock I know
Just this veranda where the hot winds blow
Brass key turns in air where no door stands
Heavy in my palm like shifting sands
No lock to catch no frame to hold
Just stories that the wind has told
Brass key rests on splintered veranda rail
Desert wind writes stories on the gale
