That sixteen-year-old words 
scratched there in a diary
could bring the two of us here
seems almost supernatural

A spring-evening walk, so like us
the us we were as teens
when you were my first and still my only kiss
as we walked the peaceful parks of home

Now so many years stretch across
a wide valley of unshared experience
squealing and dancing between us
slowly and methodically we close the gap
spinning our bridge of silk words

I pull the feathers from your lungs
they're knotted and tarred
dripping with the bitterness of isolation
they are catching in your throat

Your silences
and the space between those words
they say much more
they say it all…

Your sorrow is a blanket of leaves
your sorrow is blossom that falls
and covers this park...

Highbury Fields disappears
beneath the tears I know you cry
in your silent room
from your hiding place

Just recently I read again of all you gave me
when the two of us were lost together
so I ask myself 'what I can do
to help lift you from this place'

What can I do for you, what can I give to you;
only my time, only my time to you
and the healing warmth of resuscitated friendship
as we walk the adult night now
through this pretty park

And you can say it all
you can speak it all out loud...

 

(2014)