Sound

Moonlight shines through a midnight lake

In a clearing in the center of the wood.

That clearing is empty

But for a nighttime breeze

(Just strong enough to unsettle my unbrushed hair)

And the sound that it makes

As it ripples the water.

The water, so murky,

How I hate to be alone here,

Looking into the absence,

The absence of light

Made from the night and the mud.

My thoughtless mind empty,

I gently finger the cattails at the lake’s edge,

Letting the softness of the plant distract me,

Distract me from being all by myself in the dark…

…

I swear I could feel my ears become sharper,

Sharper I could hear every sound every insect,

Sharper I could hear every sound.

Distract me.

Holding the top of a cattail plant,

I quietly snap its brown tip off the stem

And I examine it with the little light that is here.

So much detail in the hairs of the cattail,

So much detail to distract me.

Distract me from the absence of everything,

Of light,

Of love,

Of (body)heat.

All that there is

Is sound.

The crickets are a hymnal choir

They sing to the Lord of the Wood.

The breeze laps the water like the grateful human’s tongue (for just one taste of you).

And the sound reassures me that although there is no one with me,

I am not alone

(But I do not believe).

The presence of the wood remains

(But this I cannot see).

Because there’s no one with me,

I am so alone.

…

So in the last hour of darkness before the moon sets,

I press the gentle softness of the broken cattail to the cheek.

And it’s no condolence

Knowing that this softness may never be your lips.

I only wish I knew you better.