These days are unfolding, now
like the legs
of an awakened spider,
feeling the tremors on its web;
the first catch
of a new year.
Subtlety was always
your strong suit,
so much so,
that you looked like
enmity never touched you;
no, never plagued you.
Sometimes I wondered
if you were even alive;
and then you rise
like a summer storm,
whipping up intensity,
until the world sated you.
Then you’d drift back
into your inconspicuous
half life
of a nuclear bomb.
The sun greets me
every morning, now
and I think about
the flowers coming up
amongst the dead
and decaying waste
of all their brothers.
Last year’s sentinels
are fed upon.
Like you and I,
we are survivors.
Come so far
and now;
here we are.
You, so stoic and intractable;
me,
a wonder of intent
I’ll never really understand.
So I slow it down,
let the days unfold.
Let all the tragedies
come and go.
Sensing timing
in the ebb and flow.
I know you feel it, too;
the way a spider
can feel the wind.
A better time
is before us,
as is the potential
for all things to unfold,
as they do,
in patterns.
HG – 2018
