I remember when
my eyes grew luminous
and you first welcomed me
into your secret world.
My balance was poor,
the meaning of things
continually escaped me,
I thought we would be together always.
Then you left
and I was insane in darkness.
(Who can abide that darkness
when first it comes?)
Your touch was water,
I had swelled with it.
But in the desert
I shrunk, closed in, dried up.
I learned to grieve there
and - eventually -
to be unafraid.
It was not something I wanted to learn.
When you returned
colors were swept clean.
We talked and laughed long into a night
as bright as if suns were shining.
I thought the desert done,
that you would never leave again,
but I was young and did not know
that there is a coming and going to this.
The water and the sand
are the right and left hand
of the journey.
I shall always be too young.
The knowledge of the luminous world
that I have gathered
as patiently as a squirrel
gathers nuts
fills a thimble
in the kit
you use to sew
the fabric of night and day. |
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