From the other side of time
I watch the fragile strands of love
hover between glasses of Mateus.
Like a bell of superior sound,
soft as a willow bough thrashing,
the moan of a hundred storms
moving through the rain.
An immense complication.
Innocents balancing a raft
with no shore in sight.
Only each other and words
encouraging not to be afraid.
Not to fall and sink blindly
into the nonbeing of those we’d drown.
Who would never breathe,
never look into our eyes
and see how open the net of destiny is.
So we waltzed and listened,
and traded our treasure.
What life had put in us.
How it scared us,
and shouted at us,
and filled the absences of nothing
with the counter poise of our world’s meaning.
I sigh with amazement
at the peopling of the stage.
The remarkable children.
The coincidences, not coincidences,
that we encountered.
Everywhere immense love,
immense hope.
Corollas of stars fallen around us,
which we picked like flowers
when we left our first date.