Passing Through

(For Leïta. And because David asked)


Even those most precious to you are simply
passing through. Sooner or later they or you
will be gone, your small overlap in time
dissolving like a dot in an infinite line.

There's nothing to do but love it, all of it.
The soggy sense of loss from the initial spark,
the end spelled out by the beginning,
the oppressive perfume of goodbyes

hiding between the opening lines. Nothing
to do but love the randomly strewn
particles of luck offered, like flowers,
to spread-out arms. Record and store

the trivialities which later become
necessities: that sideways glance
of instant complicity, or a tune
whistled together before a party;

the way the clouds sailed in the sky
(no one commented though you both saw it)
or how the dawn spilled into the room,
and the world started again, renewed.

All gone, and fast -- except for a trace
left somewhere inside, and a hope
that some of these precious ones
are passing in permanence.