Sending poetry to the world
We are never more rooted
in this big universe than
when our eyes sting and
our heads hang heavy for loss.
When we, a procession of sun
glasses, watch, shifting feet,
as life disappears back into
those thick familiar arms.
Our backs, clothed in black,
savor warmth, unaware that
we are at once joyful and empty,
and crying for ourselves
mirrored in the lowering. How
we know deeply: absence
of something weighs more than
substance, and we fiercely hold on.
Everything ends.
You will end. As will I.
This winter, these frozen cobwebs of memory like so many
rivulets of ice will
melt into spring lakes
My smooth hands will gnarl like roots of old trees,
and you won’t recognize them anymore.
One day, seeing a stranger,
you’ll run from me when i ask you to dance,
and your frantic footbeats will fade away,
leaving an empathetic silence.
Waiting. Winter concise in tongue says,
“It will never happen. It can’t.”
Black birds chatty squeal
“She’s forgotten, she’s forgotten you” like
playground children in keep-away.
Wood floorboards beneath my spine reason
“Be content in memory, it is enough.”
I listen, and I wait.
Only the snowy owl, rare in visits, winks
“One day, one day. You’ll see.”
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