Thirsty Hands
—The Weight of Cannot—
I came to stay the falling, yet the hour
went on beneath the ordinances of fate;
my hands, made eloquent by love, had power
only to learn how powerless to wait.
I stood beside the vanishing, and knew
that presence hath no hands with which to stay;
I called the name; its warmth remained, yet through
that warmth, the beloved had already passed away.
My love reached shore; the beloved was sea,
and every strength I summoned sank from sight;
I asked Time for one mercy; memory
returned, and made remembrance ache with light.
The thing I could not change changed what I knew
of love: my hands grew still—and still reached you.
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