Wait

I forgot to say something when we were last together. Something about beauty and peace that you are likely to know already. I forgot to mention the clouds that swallow the earth in predictable swirls of change, and the wet and dry both so conducive to growth.

We are living things. With seasons we grow and change, becoming scuffed and beaten like city sidewalks and old tree trunks. Time shines clear in our eyes. The light of it illuminates everything.

Something in your eyes makes me crave. There is lostness in them, a cunning, mysterious sense of knowledge and innocence – a child who does wrong and smiles with sweet abandon. Their dark, mysterious mood draws me in and gives me strength to wish. You bless me accidentally, with only nuance, laughter and words.

Things which cannot be spoken of should be passed over in silence. For lack of time we avoided topics about which there was too much or too little to say. And now, my mind is full of parts and pieces of us. We are a puzzle put together over time.

I forgot to say all this, and it’s possible it doesn’t need to be told, but well-felt and hidden instead. How could I describe the bursts of green leaves from gentle, willing wood after a long winter? Or, of the thawing of the canal that turns it to adolescent mud and trash before dividing it up into panes of sharp glass, broken only by strips of wind and rain? How do I speak of riverbanks at night, lush with water weeds, worms and small moist flowers? Or, of muskrats, swans, ducks and squirrels making nature of urbanity and defying human-imposed structure?

There have been years of this between you and me. Years of lungfuls and eyefulls, bellyfuls and earfuls. The scents of warm and cool things waft between us, yet we smell them separately. Dark eyes, relinquish your secrets. 

No, wait. I forgot to say that you are pungent with beauty and peace, that you should keep yourself hidden from storms and from humans. Don’t be pressed to release your precious, infectious being. Like pollen, much of it will blow away with the season and be wasted. Instead, stay somewhere moist and temperate. Flourish by the sea.

I will show you things about rivers and moons when you are ready. Around our eyes, time will etch fine grooves of recognition and respect.

I forgot to say something when we were last together. There was wisdom in our meeting. Beauty and peace were present. 

The evening is cool and lit with distant beams on the horizon. It is a forgetful sky, hiding memories under a low, diffuse cloud cover. I have just returned from a long journey by myself, a journey of meeting and reconciliation. Silence and thought overwhelm me. 

Has my face changed, become wiser or more mysterious? Or has it turned less opaque, like one of a swimmer breaking through the surface and drawing a huge breath?