In the morning the sun starts at the top of the hill and works its way down through the trees. I start at the bottom, in the shadows, and climb up into the light.
We meet in the middle. The branches resolve. The trunks begin to bronze.
I love you so.
*
Yesterday a beautiful young woman, slender and kind, touched me on the arm. The hip. The knee. Every week I look forward to this. The pink blossoms of the rhododendron. The dark, lustrous leaves. On the wet sidewalk the students hurry and push, unaware of the rain.
O Narrator! I am not the only story you tell.
*
Clouds like the clouds the day my son was born, fluffy white in a blue, blue sky. They do not remind me of loss. They remind me of how I stood on the hill and floated, too.
What do you think? Is it death that underlies all things? Or life?