In the Absence of Reunion

I have been looking at time

down the wrong end of a telescope

I have been gone only a moment;

I have been away forever

 

(The calendar pages keep turning, the year

swells, shrinks, fades: sow, plant, reap, sleep)

 

It’s not that I can’t feel

but I’ve suspended my heart

that can’t touch yours by look

or by daily sharing of bread, of space

 

(Far away from me, you grow up and grow old

and become a person I would have liked)

 

Of course you can no more hold still

than either of us can will the earth

to stop spinning. You were the star

in that time-lapse of an opening flower

 

but now we are dried, mounted, framed;

discounted by the casual observer,

unrelated. These piles of photographs

are unable to convey any essence of life

so I stare at them, willing myself to be moved

 

Inspired by We Drink Because We’re Poets: Moments. I got off-track from the prompt–kinda went opposite to a single moment–but this is where it took me.