Moving on

Meridith Frazee

For weeks after,

I find your absence in pants pockets, used envelopes,

stuffed in drawers of the old desk. 

A thousand impulses 

startle back at the light 

of your being missing.

Curling into the emptiness of the bed

I feel I am settling into all time, our time,

all millions of years knit in a lush rustling hide.

We once hiked over rock on which, in its more youthful days,

first slimes oozed.

The world has been very cold at times, 

for long times.

And very quiet. 

In this company of mountains, stars, planets

I am, I suppose, just fine. 

The earth barely blinks at me, 

not to mention bucks or howls. 

Amidst the blues of blocked reflexes,

of solitude well- deep and well- sounded,

the small weight of now

presses me more.

Smooth like a seed, a pebble, polished; without temperature;

useless for anything besides

becoming itself.