There you are, fraying. There you are, living.

 

                                                      For Bruno, in memoriam.

 

                                     Who are we when we are not with each other?

                                             Who are we when we are not alone?

 

                                                                        Bhanu Kapil

 

1.

Perhaps I was never good at tending the plants.   I would skip a day, mess up the schedule, let our almost-bonsai grow large and wild and impossible to uproot.  But you were a friend to the green will to thrive.  Rubbery fronds sucking droplets of water into their cells,  shoots like nascent tongues suckling greedily for  nutrients. No matter the chaos.

2.

In Bruges there was a time to go back to.  I sat alone on a bench and pressed my eyelids together as tightly as I could, wanting only to hear the pattern of hooves clacking over cobblestone.  Groping for the past is a merciless task.   Our children smirk at our repeated stories and surge impatiently forward.  Mementos sit on our solitary laps.

3.

Sometimes paths cross, as if silvery birds, wings touching as they swoop in sudden synch. There are fish in the pond and an abrupt burst of sunlight, it takes your breath away. Other times paths are woven together, albeit slowly and despite the length of intervals and stitch.

 

4.

Two chilly cities, take your pick.  Long fugue of hours wrapped in the warm breath of cafés. Whorls of smoke and a wintry sun casting a shadow of delicate leaves against walls, spilling onto the sidewalks. Ways of being alive. (How many do we know?)  Then pick an idea or two. Our river is bursting with them.  A downstream rush, like shiny salmon pushed along belly up, toward the distant blackness of the sea.