Favorites 2025

try calling it hibernation.
Imagine the darkness is a cave
in which you will be nurtured
by doing absolutely nothing.
Hibernating animals don’t even dream.
It’s okay if you can’t imagine
Spring. Sleep through the alarm
of the world. Name your hopelessness
a quiet hollow, a place you go
to heal, a den you dug,
Sweetheart, instead
of a grave.

I wish I could remember that first day, 
First hour, first moment of your meeting me, 
If bright or dim the season, it might be 
Summer or Winter for aught I can say; 
So unrecorded did it slip away, 
So blind was I to see and to foresee, 
So dull to mark the budding of my tree 
That would not blossom for many a May. 
If only I could recollect it, such 
A day of days! I let it come and go 
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; 
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; 
If only now I could recall that touch, 
First touch of hand in hand—Did one but know!