That was then, when the movements

of every heavenly body and two of us

were a certainty beyond all chaos.

I understood your soundlessness,

I who floated up from and dove into

star-netted deep of words.

Your language: hands on wood, brass,

dismissive of barriers not made for

one afire with his own heat and light.

And who cooled with lack of same.

It was my part to call to you,

tears like pearls pried loose

for all you did not let go;

and fingertips like moons, suns

scattered across your skin.

This is the time and the way

we breathed at the thin rim of this world

when every miraculous secret thing will

come forward, and humanity set free.

But I am still waiting in wilderness

while you have traveled on.

This is now, but it may as well

be then, movements of planetary power

still a symmetry that answers or echoes

my thoughts as I stride into dark

of winter and you, body-less, flee the night