Why We Will Never Say Hello Or Good-Bye

Why We Will Never Say Hello or Good-bye By Ingrid Showalter Swift Rake your fine fingers across my tender lips... waiting with the hunger that years have made. ...Do you still hear me? I am off in a land of daisies and flowers, of many colors. I walk down sandy paths of pale soft skin... that I imagine are yours The water-butter beneath my finger tips is your skin as well and I look out across a far away horizon and know you live there breathing on, in unison with arms open to the sky You beam as the sun... I weep as the waves. I ache and bend and cry out in labor pain There is no separation... but the heart still seems to seep with it. I can see your eyes and in my eyes still dark and far away ...you drift quietly on a raft bobbing in a safe cove The night still shifts to the wetted calm of us from time to time and I know the trees and dogs can feel us moving beneath the surface, like mermaids Our tails are webbed jewels of gold and myrrh Our fingers are intermingled... our cells combined... Our torsos are sleek and clean We separate... dip and dive like porpoises... They know... I know they know... and hear our ever calls and weep and bow and weep and dive for us in the still of twilight’s dancing diamonds Why not? I cry... but know all too well the answers Because there are flowers on our paths and children playing in the skin of the sand and we are one in our purpose and one in the words and one as they fly over head - wing to wing... As autumn climbs the hill to winter... we will be in the flickering light of fire side and the warmth of the soups that brew and are handed one to the other and we will ever be in the sawdust and in the creation of anything new and in time as it flows back and forth with the tide Nothing can ever sever us from the ants and the shells and the mail that arrives in the mail box Do you know that we are only a car ride away from forever? Do you know that we are nothing more than one phone call apart? ...just seven numbers apart! and it will remain the distance of forever because we know how fine the sand feels between our toes how smooth the wind blows over our wet torsos and white sails and how water splashes into tiny beads of light at the bow and how the tree grows and how the stone feels from the inside We will remain alone and surrounded by love ...because grass is green God! How I love you! Tell me again that you know... tell me... call me... tell me ...that it is real... that you can hear me that I am the same as the child beneath your palm loved ever, unconditionally and you are proud of who I am and who I am becoming