there are small lines

there are small lines ...

wires running through

and out of my hands and my feet

my eyes and my mouth

filaments that tether me

to the ground

i know this

because i've seen them

twice in my life:

once when the earth wished to swallow me up

and take me back

and once when i saw in your face that the earth

wished me to be more than i am

and i bet you know the small ways

in which those filaments can be brought to make music

much as the sun knows the snow

that settles around the tip

of a dried goldenrod

and teases its tongue around that

crystal circle

of containment

i hear the music of you in the rushed whispering

of the thin bodies

of the young trees

as we pass

i feel the songs of you in the small melt

of an ice-clouded puddle

somehow your words hold the whole

of the pieces together

and the formless scatter of my passage

melds with the flawless calligraphy of your voice

into a dance that brings the trees closer

each bowing in to see and to hear

what will be?

what will become?