for my friend K.N.M.
Standing in the cool morning air,
in consideration of self and solitude,
a sudden joyous flutter distracts;
another self’s beating wings brush by,
for there will be sweet nectar
to imbibe in the bye and bye,
but first, a turn and a level gaze.
So pointed a greeting,
subject to subject
—for we are each subjects
within a realm, a paradise,
sharing a language of wonder
whose name we cannot know,
but by all reckoning must be Life.
This shared gaze opens a window,
through which the bumblebee flies,
casting us only a sidelong glance;
engagement would only tarry
the work of bud embracing
on which all creation depends,
so to our tête-à-tête we are left.
This wordless meeting draws me
to recall a nearly forgotten music,
a tune perhaps heard by us both,
even if only in such waves and echoes
as still radiate from the first such encounter,
which might well live on in fluid eddies
as the song of eternal return.
This mutual gaze cannot last,
for this, our singular moment, it must end;
this language we live
cannot abide the invariable:
all moments must transcend,
capitulating to the music and meter of next,
to the changing changeable.
We know one another only by sight,
and to that degree, perhaps not at all,
but the blessing that we have delighted,
to look and to see, with equal curiosity,
sharing the light of the same sun,
must have changed us, in ways we’ll surely discover
within the cocoons of our solitary dreaming.
© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com
