that ever was...

"...may came home with a smooth round stone 
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea"

                          e.e. cummings, from "maggie, millie, molly, and may"

I shared this with my students today, and it made me think
of all the things that coexist

inside a moment

a drooping mouth, dry and trying to speak

a two year old's song "I wub it daddy"

feet crunching on glass-like lava

a breeze that blows your wedding veil

at the moment you invoke family lost 

allowing your tongue to  trace an ancient belly scar, learning his lines

laughing at how loud you said "I do!"

a live trampoline comedy show, paused, so he can take his knee in a crowded gym

and open the box that means forever

big, big fights about all the little things, wrapped in a screenless window room

in the Swan Hotel on the Thames River

holding hands while driving

rolling your eyes at yet another diving story

wondering why it is so hard for him to say you are "beautiful"

and trying hard to smile when he says "pretty" instead

and the soft, quiet, firm moments

with candles lit and the door locked, sweating and breathing heavy.

It's all there.  It's all gone.  It is empty, over-full, lost and seated deep inside you...

ebbing and flowing with every ocean tide

that ever was

and ever will be.