WATER

Old river-thought murmurs —I slip— not away, but into the hush between what holds and what lets go— a spine of light bending softly from mist to depth. I remember stillness: cupped hands at morning prayer, a silence shaped like longing filling with the cool of grace. Listen— I dwell in every pause you mistook for end. Your name—rippled through me, again and again, a hymn undone by echo. Yet I am no hymn. I am the silence after— unclinging— and the weightless reach. See how the lily leans, not in sorrow but surrender— a slow bow to sky-drip, a soft unfolding. Where I flow is not escape but return. The fall is not forsaking. The fall is how I carry you home.