YOU AND I: We

Wait
Don’t say it
This is not the happily-every-after-into-the-sunset
This is this moment
Followed by the next
And the next
The colors, stunning, heart opening
It’s true
But also a rare occurrence in the journey of the circle
For they fade into mono-chromatic sleepiness
And then silhouettes and glittering speckles
And boundless, big blue
And storms
And ho-hum of day after beautiful day
And muted, overcast heaviness
And all of the beautiful, heartbreaking, boring, tumultuous, perfect unknowns

We are not a list of things in common
Or the coconspirators of our shared delusion
Just because I like to cook dinner and you like to clean up
Or you are a former beauty queen with greater ambitions
And I am a snow machine racing champion
It doesn’t mean we are a match made in something-that-we-made-up

We are brilliant, unrestrained silliness
We are wounded
We are unpredictable and predictable
We are the messy attempt at coordinating the contrary schedules of our souls
We are closer and closer to what can never have

We bask in the beauty of our wholeness
And meet the dark places with the light of kindness and grace

We are open
We improvise
We are finite

We are simplicity and perplexity forged into a vast wilderness

We come together and move apart
Again and again
Like all things in their fickle, requisite transformations

We look at the sunset knowingly

We dance
In love
In joy
In imperfection
And in faith

Copyright 2009 John Shapiro