Reality

I was hearing the sound of bootsteps
On the frontporch of a white frame farm house
In Montgomery County, Tennessee.
I could still hear the hard, hollow tone
Resounding from the planks
To my ears in this very moment,
Despite the fact that the house
Was torn down almost ten years ago now
And I am sitting in this chair,
In my office, three hundred miles away.

And I wonder what is more real:
The feel of this chair on my backside
As I type out these lines
Or the sound of those footfalls
On the wooden porch
Swept free from leaves
By my grandmother's liver-spotted hands
With an old hickory broom,
The planks painted grey against the weather's beating
Which still blows
A strong, scented breeze at my back
From the fields now fallow.