Under this Sky
Under this Sky
Under this sky
you’re so far away
and I can’t tell you how it reminds me of the sea
deep blue, and the moon, a wispy white half in the afternoon
I can’t tell you how
I cut white hydrangeas
arranged them in a copper vase from Mexico
with the delicateness of mallow, so expansive, so pink, so soft
your daughter’s color,
and this, these petals
made me think of her, you, there on the ocean
under a different sky, so far away from her, me, these flowers
I can’t tell you how
there is a garden
of gifts on the wooden counter from a friend
who, perhaps, thought of me when he dug his hands into the dirt
how I want to see you
there on the metal stool
as I cut these vegetables, sing familiar things
as we share stories, expressions, live in each other’s presence
I can’t tell you how
I have grown tired
how I’ve filled my head with dreams of yellow roses
and nasturtiums and eating oatmeal under the sun next to the sea
and how I love you
how I’ll keep telling you
though you’re so far away and can’t hear these words
how I’m left to hold them without the feeling of holding you
I can’t tell you how
hydrangeas are silence
my silent company, how their beauty is what holds me
in a space we’ve shared together, now this, these white flowers
and how everything is
offering and opening
how I want you to see these hues in my brown eyes
share with me twice in this home’s slow and subtle awakenings
I can’t tell you how
late August air feels
how the coffee tastes richer in this weather, wearing this jacket
how it feels to have this warmth in the purple vibrancy of phlox
how it means "flame"
under the intensity
of time in the mind, passing without the proximity of love, how
there’s no languid hour in the act of missing, constant thinking of
I can’t tell you how
it feels to be here
alone and with thoughts of Brooklyn and risotto and a carousel
of going endlessly around and around in the company of love
and how I want
to have that here
that rhythmic pattern with you, here, under this temporal sky
to reminisce how blue it was, once, that day in late August
Absence, despite my endless missing, yields a slipping into dream spaces, a subconscious drawing forth of past vigor that held so much life and color. It is strange to me that the act of missing can’t sustain me, keep me from fragments of past that are not so much idealized, but rather produce within me such a heightened sense that I can, again, find peace in the present. These are little strings of things: eating oatmeal, a yellow rose, risotto, a carousel, all playing a love story that seems closer than my present one, perhaps because that is, though closer in time, just as distant as those memories. It’s strange how it all becomes when two people can’t move through a daily life together, look at each other, feel each other, go through a day doing more than remembering each other. The more time we spend apart, the more I have come to realize how significant it is to be in a present together, to share things in the physical presence of, under the same temporal sky. Perhaps we look out and look up and see different things, think of different things, but being there with each other seems to distill time in a way that allows for love to speak so presently and peacefully, so that I do not need a story of oatmeal, a yellow rose, risotto, or a carousel, to remind me of what it once felt like to touch love.