A LONG TIME AGO

Some people
we don’t know how to understand; they’re all
crowded outside the window
and your door. But the book today
still has a more welcome opening,
as I predicted.

It’s hard, sometimes. And lonely—
how we still hang around here,
with no strings to hold us
in place, just because it’s familiar.

Take a few steps back, and everything
is still out in the distance—the strong memories,
a twisted line, stopped clocks, the sun moving
towards the horizon. There is still laughter
in the air, maybe one of the only things left.

Things can get better, we can grow
stronger. And it can all go back
to the way it was, asking, “What should we do now?”
And there will be more silence, but uneffective
silence, the kind we usually have
when we don’t know what to do anymore.
We can leave it up to the tide, and we usually do
because it’s easier that way; maybe the pain
won’t come back.

And still, you find a way
for your breathing to fall into rhythm
with the earth’s. One day,
we won’t live here anymore.

(June 15, 2008)