Serenade at Dusk

This evening was cool and still as M and I made our way along the river at sunset, and after I dropped her off and sped home (normally we linger, dally even, but I have to get up at 4:00 am to make a class in Salt Lake) I was walking up to my door when something made me stop, frozen in the twilight, arrested. It was the distant but distinct peal of bells, a melodic and triumphant carol echoing off the low clouds and haunting a quiet weeknight. I thought I was hearing things until I remembered the campanile they installed in the war memorial at the County Complex downtown, several blocks away. I walked to my cement porch, wincing at the crunch of gravel, and sat down to listen to the music finish, remembering the soft gongs of the bells in St. Mark's Square in Venice causing the pigeons and doves to scatter and fly, the harsher chiming of the Munich glockenspiel in the Marienplatz. We lapped at gelato while we waited, the minute hand heaving around the face, for the elaborate twirling dancers, the jousters, the nobles parading in solid robes. If we could choose the soundtracks to our lives, bells would feature heavily in mine.