“Our very life depends on continuous acts of beginning. But these beginnings are out of our hands; they decide themselves.
Beginning precedes us, creates us. There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning.
More often than not it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could."
John O’Donohue


8 May 2014

The Proposition

Something about the way you ask—
“How can I see you again?”—
makes me want to put on different robes.

Because nothing fits, anything can be worn
for a while.

And I’ll let you, of course, see me—
because earnest desire pleases me,
and because I am unsure if we are here at all
outside of being noticed.

But the how is just the question, isn’t it?

I think maybe I’ll show up as someone simple
this time.

Just imagine—
No old, weeping wounds still being nursed.
No visions of treacherous strangers
taking my bed as their own.
No grand work to accomplish. 

Just some stories about picking blueberries
on hot hills in distant summers,
amusing misunderstandings and fender benders,
and a European backpacking trip
that changed my life when I was 22. 

And now a well-worn reading nook in my apartment
that catches some sunlight,
an impish resistance to gossip,
enough work to buy tangerines and freesia
every week at the market where we meet,
and soundless pictures of making love in new places
in the afternoon, no urgency.

I could try it on.
Months could go by before
what’s been written and said
finds its way to you.