In my absence

I have considered leaving, the silence of my absence

drifts away with the wind

What would they say to me? Would they sing for me? Send me away with the words of a love song so I know I have lived.

I see in their eyes childish chatters, clambering up my banyan tree in foolish fantasies

Mother tree’s long beards were sweeping and generous

I see green roses, raw from their youth

Stumbling to reach, and prick.

Then at the seawall, trying. Crashing waves lick and lap at the jagged stone walls, rounding its edges as the sun dipped towards the glimmering sea

A silence was lost to the wind,

And I shrank in.

Within the city limits I hardened into a sojourner adrift

The bright tones of a sax, of some tunes sad and sweet

That I didn’t know it complete.

The water crested and fell

As the dull drumming of the sea

echoed in the wind.

But I found myself in the mountains, guided by the mountaintop winds and I thought I had wings.

I learned to breathe again through the alpine meadow speckled with purple buds and the icy blue lake awash with smooth silt and that’s when

You found me

You found me. You found me you found me you found me

Within the city’s cacophony, the cawing and clattering of crows, cradled in scars you found me

You cracked open my shell. Lights streamed in,

Rendering me overwhelmed with greed and gratitude

And when I get sucked back in I’ll remember your touch and the stardust melody

And won’t you miss me?

In my heart (the neurons firing forming beliefs) I know.

I know, darling.

Not only will they miss me they will sing and dance and cheer for me, scream on mountain tops till their lungs drop and oh may their souls be free

So if I do leave — ere I do leave — it’s up to me to have tried truly every eve

And my breathing will sing with the wind