“Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

– WS Merwin

Beneath an uncertain sky I stand,
Facing the direction from which
New seasons weave together strands
Of memories formed from the twitch
Of bodies: hearts that yearned and failed,
Listless lips that fell in love and ran aground.

I hear in the rustling of trees the sound of a dress;
The morning air smells of water caressing skin.
O trickle of time! O moment just lost! Will you not bless
My heart and save me from that worst of sins:
To love so fully as not to see,
Then to see so clearly as not to love?

Evening dawns, and with it strange gusts
Of color streak across the sky
Like a sobbing fire carried to the sea, and I lust
For the spark that sparkled in her eye.
O, she is a stolen book! Yet still I read
Of joy and freedom—the hopeful lover’s creed.