You, Again
Night brings you without apology.
You lie beside my thoughts
as if you have always belonged there,
as if forgetting were a language
my body never learned.
Night brings you without apology.
You lie beside my thoughts
as if you have always belonged there,
as if forgetting were a language
my body never learned.
I think of you
the way fruit
thinks of summer,
inevitably,
without impatience,
accepting sweetness
as a form of waiting.
And still, in rare quiet evenings,
I feel you like fading perfume,
a tender ache under my ribs,
a gift I could not keep,
a love unheld, yet once real.
And so
I let it be.
No forcing the current,
no rushing the sun.
Just one day,
then another,
on and on,
until whatever this is
becomes
what it’s meant to be.
I smile for you,
because love,
when it’s true,
is stronger than loud thunder,
gentler than falling leaves,
patient as the deep roots,
clinging to mountain’s dark heart.
Now, only the echo of you
remains in the steam,
rising like a ghost
that refuses to forget the flavor
of our mornings.
Your pretty smile
is a hush beneath thunder,
a gentle harbor
in the stresses of man’s days.
The world shouts, breaks, and tumbles –
but you,
you are the smile
that mends it.