The world is quiet here. 

I’m caught amidst a ceaseless surge of blurred people

As I fade away into forgotten memory, 

Reflecting, remembering. 

Waiting. 

 

When I’d showed up at your garden

On that one sunny summer’s day, 

I watched a vivacious 5 year old play, 

Until you asked me,  “Hey, what’s your name?”

I only smiled and took my seat

Next to you on the grass,  

as it would always be. 

 

We gaze at the passing people. 

Walking, talking, embracing 

So innocently, so naturally,

As humans do. 

Blue skies turn gray;

I turn to face you.

 

A seer, a seeker, a dauntless speaker. 

Blatant honesty masks your uncertainty; 

That unwavering conviction spiraling,

turbulent inside your mind.

Young one, listen here, 

The angst that clouds your eyes no longer 

Keeps you here. 

So “Run with me.” 

It’s a chance taken, a road not mistaken, 

To escape to your self-imposed exile. 

 

My dear friend, you need not fear, 

For I am your spoken diary. 

Hands etching the words you dare not utter, 

Eyes seeing the world in your colors. 

Feet following you at the pace of your thoughts, running, 

Desperate, onwards, 

to the open fields of liberation’s playground. 

All until our knees hit life’s rocky road, 

bleeding without a stutter.

 

But at last, when I’d looked up from that fall, 

Hoped to grab your hand– 

I’d always lent you mine after all–  

Only to find that you’d left me in the halt;

I took your departure with a grain of salt. 

 

So I went back to the garden to wait, 

alone but for the pouring rain– 

A stranger, masking the tears astray

Beneath my deadened gaze.

I peer at you with the others, through scattered sunlight,

Arms slung over shoulders, chattering incessantly, 

Sauntering away into slowly obscuring days.

I don’t remember if I seethed or breathed, but

I was rooted to the spot between those white roses we planted,

Watching you live and laugh through the thorns

for a time as endless as the pain you gave me.  

​

Still, I knew I’d wait for you,

A forgotten fragment in your kaleidoscopic world;

the light in your eyes shifted from mine, but

I never let thorns grow over your spot beside me.  

And it was in that moment, I realized,

with the passage of people came the passage of lives –  

Like the seasons changing, chameleons in the sky.

A heart of stone grown over with ivy,

I’m immersed in memory’s company;

My curled-up form became one in a flowered cemetery, 

As I bore the weight of the loneliness 

That would never be my vengeance upon you, 

Only my sacrifice, for you, 

to whom I was simply an intricate shard.  

 

But then one day, in some far off age,

When your cry echoed through my evergreen cage, 

I broke away from my decaying ebony bindings, rising;

For you, my friend, a thousand times over,

I’d stay in the garden again.

 

We were in each other’s sights, but barely eye to eye;

Our hesitation took mere words to dissolve, yet 

Neither could break the other’s resolve.

An age in time, it’s funny to think.

We were the same, except for the odd wrinkle or mole,

But somehow a mile between our souls,

No longer wanting to return to our bookmarked pages,

Without skipping the chapters in between.

Wistful thinking for the past fought contentment for our present,

Acceptance became the medicine, the hand to guide us forth.

For as we stepped in time towards our new day,   

It was easier to simply watch you stray away 

Over and over, over again,

All the way, until the end.  

 

So when I showed up at our garden,

the summer sun was beaming again

Like that first day an era ago.

I watched you for the last time;

You’d reached your end. 

My dear friend, will you miss me?  

You’re at the end of all beginnings, 

And the beginning of my end. 

“I’ll wait for you in the garden” you say, 

 Taking me back years, with that knowing grin.

I watch you pass away now; 

The world is quiet here.