On Abiding

I never wanted
to be awash in

agreement, I never
wanted to argue or

agonize, only to listen
for the rain blown

against glass, sense
who you are

when you are alone but
with me. Present,

the way a birch
late at night
is present to wind.

*

Only I wanted you
next to me
in a sleeping

curve of heat. It seemed
I was always
misplacing you.

But I loved every
part, eyelashes.

and limbs, the way you
leapt into the day.

To want a simple life
might mean
to have given up

on expectation.
It could mean

that faith is easily
crushed, that something

as easy as crossing
the street at dusk

is suddenly too physical,
too narrow, too
empty, too hard,

too rich, too small,
too soon.

*

If I could see
through the rains,
the liquid trees,

quarrel only for a
moment, never be
rushed. Stop

completely at the river’s
lightflutter and wait
until it passes

and feel the quiet
which is the sound

of hawk and
cloud—to make
good of what you have,

to feel the air press
around you and not regret
the loss of you—

the windows of the
night-trains filling with
metal dusk—snow

turning back to rain,
the underside

of everything you have ever
cared for, unsparing

days and nights,
the plain evening,

hard work, the uncertainty, the
courageous happiness,

the suffering, to see it, to stay
alive, to hope, to hope

for more, to act,
to crave, to reach for,
to let ourselves be

graced, to leave behind
made things, luminous things,
cool trails of fire,

to tap and then step back,
falling silent, to risk an
opening, to find time

to be nowhere and lost
and to love. If we
can. If we do.