Anniversary

On the occasion of our wedding anniversary in the year of the waning gibbous moon

Did you ever imagine us growing old together? 

Our edges frayed 

so far from youth 

the way we were

is almost two other people

And here we are 

grown together like saguaro and palo verde

we are the centuries 

shorn up by loose soil 

You and me

Inextricable 

Now I understand why the ancients

see people in nature

faces in rocks

beings in the star patterns

Over the eons of being united, we become what we were not

That is, one for all time 

For Robert

Living on the Edge of Everything

 When we lived on the edge of the world 

the mountain so close we breathed in the hot scent of rock 

even with snow clustered in the grasses

our dog howled with the coyote

When we lived on the edge of the world 

volcano so close its hot breath laid upon the air like dragon mist

our fish moved to its rhythms

we danced with the trees 

When we lived on the edge of the world 

ocean so close we heard boulders groan in its night waves

meteors sizzled over head but silent

it was nameless winds that told our story

When we lived on the edge of the world 

city so close its birds adopted us

I listen to them fly their wings sing

do they know the mountain I wonder

are we both wild still even upon the asphalt

Rockets going off in the darkness

scattering light cinders 

I will always remember their reflections 

softly falling into themselves upon the alpine lake on the edge of the world 

before life unfolded 

🎇🎆💫✨