Make me forget

For even just a second

That I’m going to die alone

Make me want nothing more

Than to wipe away your tears

Forgetting my own

Knowing our sorrow’s tributaries 

Share the same source

Jagged disappointments smoothed

By years of melancholy currents

Our very roots penetrating 

Dense, ancestral, red clay 

Laden with heart’s blood

Distract me

From the need to crawl 

Into some dark, unknown corner

Surrendering myself to the stillness 

Show me that our words

Even the desiccated ones

Are tumbleweeds

Rolling across lost landscapes

Leaving seeds of inspiration 

Show me that today’s atrophy

Is overridden by tomorrow’s triumphs 

That your faith in me

Was warranted

That love

Was not wasted

That stillness

Is irrevocable 

That light can penetrate

The deepest of darknesses

Show me…