When you were traced
Smaller than each grain of sand
To display where you fell,
While I held onto hope’s grace.
Deep in overflowing cups,
Drunk on the flavor I cusped –
Same with the trickles to your lips,
Before finding a way to the earth.
You were beautiful in all moments,
Before the wind clipped your wings.
I want to keep tasting
What I have lost.
Its span in the desert,
Its loss in life, wasting –
Precious moments beneath graves,
Instead of healing above waves.
I kiss hands for them to stay
Upon pebbles that cannot decay.
I loved with a weeping smile
Not to recede of any ache.
I waited, while barges had passed,
Carrying scents not of flowers
Past the stretching grass,
The ever-feathery horizon.
I wait, while nothing wakes –
Yourself, for the seasons
To take the shape of a bird
Whose wings were the span of life.
Keep kissing what little is meant
To find time where it went.
Modern Romanticism 