If we sped up time
Our lives would be a flash
Maybe that's what makes us special
We are the few lights
In the infinite dark

Today only their edges show.
A feather, a foot, a flash of orange,
stirring leaves left on the big madrona,
playing hide-and-seek,
suddenly exotic.

Ruth Solnit November 2020

She does not meet my gaze
as she enters, she sees me
and exorcises me with a bleak past.

Her consort sailor, sick or moribund.
She felt lonely, herself and only
considers thoughts
to another life with someone else.

Her eyes value
phantasms swimming.
She is a prisoner and beckons me away.