Love runs longer than any river bed
could abide its waters
on their fastidious sojourn.
Down by the shoreline,
I am narrow
and visible to you, yet
I am weightier
in the invisible moments.
I, scholar and elector of truths, know
you, hearts and attentiveness:
We are the same
but divided . . .
I haven’t lately watched your footsteps,
your momentum shaking the leaves
and the brush as you hurtle
through your being.
So, what I am is not enough,
just a distant shore
on the world’s girth that Autumn
and its cold fire
will not touch.
. . . Then tomorrow and tomorrow
and tomorrow.
The only way to gone is here,
and arrival is distant.
I want to be indistinct, everywhere,
potential undiluted.
Yet, that’s also nothingness.
Ask the generous: you must be who
you must be,
whether in morsels or cascading.
. . . from their gnarled roots on the banks,
clinging in the nests of hope,
exposed to the winsome air:
We ripen differently. The giants are
all around us as
we grow, as we swim through it:
Love.
Beyond the end of us . . .
Michael S Marsters 