It was getting late in the year,
the sky had been low and overcast for days,
and I was drinking tea in a glassy room
with a woman without children,
a gate through which no one had entered the world.

She was turning the pages of an expensive book
on a coffee table, even though we were drinking tea,
a book of colorful paintings—
a landscape, a portrait, a still life,
a field, a face, a pear and a knife, all turning on the table.

Men had entered there but no girl or boy
had come out, I was thinking oddly
as she stopped at a page of clouds
aloft in a pale sky, tinged with red and gold.
This one is my favorite, she said,

even though it was only a detail, a corner
of a larger painting which she had never seen.
Nor did she want to see the countryside below
or the portrayal of some myth
in order for the billowing clouds to seem complete.

This was enough, this fraction of the whole,
just as the leafy scene in the windows was enough
now that the light was growing dim,
as was she enough, perfectly by herself
in her place in the enormous mural of the world.

packed and left but now people care.
didn't even notice when I was there.

say their goodbyes, farewells, so longs.
doesn't matter that I'm already gone.

now I'm here, and now im alone.
in a new place I have to call home.

starting all over in this new place
all old memories hope not to erase.

and through it all to myself I stay true.
for a wise one once said, hard things I can do.

She's what I long to be.
God brought her to me.
Beautiful, loving and kind.
I'm happy to call her mine.

Daughter my parents never had.
To have her I'm so glad.
She knows just what to say.
No matter what, come what may.

Best friend to call my own.
But the coop she already has flown.
So her wisdom she passes on.
We have a special "sibling" bond.

Although not the same descent.
And our relationship recent.
I am proud to call her.
My favourite older sister.

One of us is leaving...

...both of us are gone.