~ by description ~

Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Some places must

be seen first-hand – handled. Closely

held, the gray-green sky grew into me, blended

eyes’ light with evening. (The cadence of your voice, wind chime shadows

striking bare wall, tells almost half its truth, as though belonging.) Were I

water, river water, and still enough without ever ceasing

to move, still my current would run

down from you, narrowing and widening into the far. No longer

with you, I am your face seen from a distance, though

the source of us (headwaters) keep shifting at your feet, walking. And

this, not even praise, just a way of seeing. By description, not by full moon

light, I thought you would be taller – 2,700 feet

to someone’s measure – a mountain, though so gradual

rising. Perhaps just a crow, heavy with winter, finding

wings again, catching my eye standing at the kitchen window

washing dishes, melancholy voice passing through

warmth, boiling rice, radio playing. Personifications of nature,

the body’s crying to be let

outside in the moment of you-had-to-be-there, you were.