On earth, everything no longer
here is here in some variation
of light. An ice age
half-gone, all geography
shaved off youngest to oldest:
craters and lakes telling time
in reverse. Someday we’ll end
up there, you used to say,
pointing to the sun setting
over the strand. The season
and the leaves, starting
over again in a dream
with everything that lived
before this. Is it strange,
how a hurt that looked back
at you, looks like all of you
in the amber slowness
before evening. The detour
of your shadow
somewhere, casting a hook
over the water, perception
as imprecise as memory
or the autumn lingering
inside of it. Any year
straying no further
than the line of a robin’s
wings, the slight lean
of the trees that said life
held on. If I could call
you back, would this shore
be the one you’d wait on? How often
I mistake the sound of the wind
for the sound of your answer.
Your answer for a goodbye said
aloud. Goodbye for a matter
of time, or maybe a matter
of timing. Like a bird caught
mid-flight in the light
of the sky, brimming with everything
and nothing at once.