Always Alive

“Speak plainly,” said the stone spine,
so here it is, simply as it was
when you held me in the rolling clouds
like so much gathered helichrysum
and sunset turned our shadows
into a rainbow circle, cycled in
the windswept grey turning gold:
a wholly temporary halo
on top of this ancient animal
where the Beloved’s face gazes with us,
mpepho’s yellow smile high on her slopes
as a hundred martins make light
of the rain-ripe air roving over
sheer cliffs, still perched precariously,
patiently rising into another night
as one tear rolls down my amazement,
made of pure gratitude and my pledge
to come back down and dip my pen
and fail again to write anything
close to the truth
of what it was to walk with you
across moving sky, singing goodbye
into the gathered clumps of siempre viva
as we grasped for nothing and were left
gaping by grace.

Traces

Go fly

Moving air

Across universes