another half hour of the same day

(original post: august 29, 2007)

ghostly, your voice,
old friend,
ripped apart
by distance
and wires,
but still acute, so
stabbing
new as the
first time we talked
almost five years
ago,
you still had that laugh
almost a growl,
one that ditance
couldn't touch...
what once was
running across
rooftops, and
proofreading essays
has succomed
to time, and
people, and
oceans apart;
old friend,
you know me
and my pen
too well,
can read the words
before blank pages
feast upon them,
can speak them
as they tumble
out my lips...
and as you sleep, now,
i wonder if you dream
about which ones
out of the millions
of bulbs lit
on the kyoto strip,
are burnt out,
or the flowers
that fell in the wind
leaving the gnarled branches
to fend for themselves
in their bare-barked beauty;
maybe you dream
of putting words
in student's mouths,
the language so foreign
to them, but
our saving grace
over the years...
or portland's beers,
tallahassee sunsets,
philly traffic...
or maybe,
glass walled
conversations,
clear as kyoto's
night sky.
old friend,
i miss your smile
and the years
you put into it,
the life it took
to live it
is what makes
your grin growl.

k.