Passion, you may feel it in obvious ways
How he leans in with his enveloping strength
Or, in the thunder of your chest, riding imaginary horses with your best friend
Forgetful of arithmetic and teachers who felt you’d end your days in borstel, because you did like running rings around them, didn’t you?
Regretting those petty rebellions later
Then in the crisp light and imagined stampede
Thrashing to the furthest point in your mind, bathed in fantasy
A place hard to reach, even splayed on cold Mexican tile, pretending your hand was his
Even, swimming underwater, until your lungs burned to surface
It was as if, once you grow up, the way back becomes harder
Like a secret language, only known to children, daunting you with reminder
The tree house of your neighbor, as you take the prescribed walk, your cardiologist insisted upon
The first rain lillies urging through Texan soil against all odds, their impossible fragility, an exquisite reprieve from cracked earth
Have you gone so far child? As to forget the combination?
Here, where verbena and lemon grass, pummel air with magic
Here, where you didn’t need anything, but the cupping of your hands, wonderment running through water, like you were born again and again, empied of harm
Full of the vigor, of not knowing, the beaten path, to adulthood
Such talent!
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Candice, this is simply beautiful, elegant, eloquent, poignant, heart-stirring, and on and on with all those adjectives that sound redundant and trite, but I mean them sincerely. This is a looking back, evaluating, like when one’s life flashes before our eyes.
Thinking of you, dear friend. 🌸💕
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