When We Meet

When We Meet
[all photos by Sam]

Here I am!
skipped by a dreamer's hand
across the ocean, a
heart-shaped stone
veined in rose,
clattering onto your front stoop.
Never mind your sidelong glance at once ironic & pithy --
HERE I AM!
I've come to torture your
electric toaster,
slobber on your guest pillow,
run my mouth whenever you attempt to read,
but mainly?
I've come to meet your meadow!
Pull on your dungarees, Cupcake,
& lead the way,
past stone doorways & plant-pot
people poised on garden benches, through familiar turns,
you, me, and
a small tiger
clammering instead for a tractor transport.











We'll trespass, won't we?
Clang open the rusty metal
gate, tipping on its hinges from
a stalwart, wood and weathered post?
Chin-high nettles,
suddenly friendly, raise a prickly-chorus to your name,
& the trees beyond
dip their heads in a home-girl nod
to your presence.
We'll stroll, arms linked &
trailed by the tiny beastie
(eyeing ME warily but
watching US curiously), and in
a meadow opening, shaded just-so
in dappled rays, fanned by the
tree posse, we'll sit
cross-legged, facing each other,
& join together that third eye
in the center of our foreheads --
heart-sourced & pulsating,
the sweet connecting of souls.
We'll remember, quietly,
& learn, calmly, but our
interlaced knuckles will
whiten with discovery:
You! Me! Us! We!
[& just behind your right shoulder,
the tiny tiger observes,
his curls lit like autumn.]

Joy & joining catapult us upward,
a high SPRING to
our enlightened feet --
& we'll take
the tiger's pawlets,
one in each of our hands, &
fashion a run to match
all our tempos,
the grasses & nettles & trees parting,
[and grinning],
snapping their own versions of our
Kodak Moment -- to recall us,
later, among themselves
beneath the moonlight --
leaning toward each other,
whispering, "Did we dream it?
Were they real?"

You spin off, & the little one,
trusting your trust in me,
trusting his own momentum &
the moment, gives me
his free hand & we twirl,
3 together ...

& the ants march &
the clouds blush for having
even considered rain
& the leaves twinkle

& the nettles preen their thorns,
anticipating your selection (soon)
of those to accompany us home,
those to become our tea.

Here I am!
One of you,
one with you,
heart-shaped & honed, released
to & revealed of
just these pumping rosy veins
tracking our dance, our walk,
our tiger companion asleep in
your lap, our hands
knitted together,

& OUR meadow (now). And later, we'll drink the
nettle tea, and it is the
day in liquid perfection,
delivering again
You! Me! Us! We!

found
found
found

for Sam and Ruben
June 25, 2009