Around the frayed rim of time’s pocket

his hand toyed with the timing of what he saw,

the back-and-forth comforting somehow

in its precision, quiet in its simplicity,

the wind swaying the gentle fronds of her hair

collapsing the weight of his love for her

entirely into rhythm’s motion of each new wave . . .

 

The endlessness of space, he thought,

bears no witness to her

infinite beauty, the soul of

who she is – and all of it,

All but a faint memory:

 

the smell of the ocean air,

walking on this beach –

the salt on saltwater,

our meshed bodies

completing the etch of time,

a trailblaze of courage,

emotionally bound,

as a prelude to Before, watching all of it freefall

into the shelter of Now, this very moment –

 

As it goes, a momentary rift in

the rite of weighting, a revelation of distance

and connection, harbingers of what must

come to pass, unraveled without warning.

 

 

 

© K. James Ribble