How We Live

Once, before the sun banked high,
and I felt the rosewarmth of the
morning on my face,
I traced the fallblack trunks
with my eyes, reaching for the
clouds, cupping the cool dew
with scant leaves, waiting for frost,
and the death of drifting season,
to another truth, another year,
that would be better, the
sidewalks like a blackboard
reversed for my finger,
ready to remove the white
new snow, revealing the
dark asphalt letters beneath my hand.
Hello, it says, to neverwas,
and neverwill again.
We move together with the wind,
the flakes becoming blanket,
one small crystal at a time,
the unique grains of truth
that perish in their moment,
one upon another, cold with certainty,
yielding to breeze and warmth,
and gone without a sound.
This tide, of lives and loves,
which buffets all upon its
careless waves, grips us tight,
and thrown from crest to trough
we imagine that the falling
and the rising has scripted meaning.
If I can believe this,
our separation but a fingertip,
grasp it now with me and firmly,
for the bluedepth of the oceantide
may push us to another place
and time without a side.