I found you having just broken the hard soil.
The impatiens were new, fresh, vulnerable.
They were nestled in the earth, balanced there
Between glory and despair.
Like them, I could not help but smile.
The prospect of life was too enticing.
An age of cynicism could not suppress
My desire to live again.
I had never seen you in an ordinary setting.
Yours was a life of magic for me:
Cottages along the beach; Victorian houses
Preserved from encroaching glass and steel. 
We sat over martinis, reading Emily Dickenson.
A flower upon the moor might live to meet the morning.
Her prayer, balanced upon the eternal fulcrum
Would wait as well: pure, perfect, and fragile. 
I left in the night, amid wonders yet nescient.
You spoke of Emily’s “feathered things” and places
Where hope may perch within the soul.
Until then, the hot dry day was hours away.
© FXP 2010