The mid-afternoon sun glares into her dusty gray eyes
And she arches her hand in a slow curve into the light.
Tell me, she said,
Where you have been?
I watch the ice melt in our glasses
And I search for the words to hold all the years
To speak of the days since that last summer
But I find myself instead remembering the startling blue of
the lake
And the way the deep, green pine trees cast their shadows
across the water.
She has not changed, with her bright smile and faded
freckles
I remember when we sat on the baseball field and looked up at
the sky
Black velvet miles of sky lit up with shards of stars
That had been the time before the choosing, before the
beginning.
And since then we had chosen, closed doors behind us
Seen the way life descends so suddenly upon you
That you can't catch your breath, can't slip your hours into
words anymore
But she asks me again: Give me a word
Tell me who you have become.
And I try to find a word for the chuppah made of
sky
And the newborn eyes full of surprise, tiny hands reaching
endlessly towards me
A home made of Jerusalem stone
And silver candles with flames that dance in the window
Is there a word for the sun crashing in a red waterfall of
light?
Who can capture the sacred mountains that stretch beyond
time?
When did I lose the words to explain my choices?
The choices so subtle, so silent
That I forget I am choosing?
Until this day,
When I sit beneath a yellow and white umbrella
Watching the ice melt beneath my hands
And wondering -
Is there a word for the silence that surrounds the
choices?
The enormous choices that we make
In the crevices between time?
There are no words
Only a smile
That stretches across time
A smile between friends
Friends who know that where you have been
Is nothing compared to what you have become.
