How cold it can be in March, far out in the open fields, wind bearing down my neck as if in vengeance. Old sins visit, begging to be reconsidered. How I miss the tenderness that I imagine characterized our brief correspondence.
I walk in such a way that the moon is first to my right and then to my left but always it is west. Thin clouds bunch above the trees, working against the light but in the end only able to transform it. Nobody is awake at this hour, you go at your own pace.
You lying down, pulling me closer. You shedding memory, becoming more and more translucent, like a polished shell or a flake of quartz in rain. You drifting across the lake when I most need you present.
One perceives a spiral, each enfolded circumference glittering, a spiritual tornado, the eye of which is God. Vowels are space, consonants the helpful fence. How gentle I long to be and yet how secret my gentleness remains!
Near the driveway - coming home - I bent to listen for the sound of water beneath the morning ice and heard nothing. Certain bells in Germany continue to ring in my ears, as certain trains never arrive, and we travel forever, singing and drinking. Just like that, the red-winged blackbird returns, and I think of the ones who care about such things, who perceive and attend the sacred calendar.
At the farthest point out - nearly in another town - I gave up and turned back, face stung with cold, heels numb, and oddly scared though of what I could not say. Grace is never opportunistic! As her lips remain a distant gift, likely to never be opened.
And so I come back to my corner and write, getting up now and then to check on the moon, which has almost fallen all the way below the horizon. What a circle we make, wordy and fumbling, stubbornly insisting on finishing together.
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