The soil recognizes
the vibration of your
soft soul and soft soles
when you walk around
the garden's edge.

Grounds from every corner
of the world hasten
to be underneath your feet.

Twenty dignified, upright,
and humble footsteps
from the lilies
to carnations

and much of the earth
is covered.

Do not leave me
not even for a day.

For a day is long,
difficult to understand

and one without you
exhausts me.

By my life's end and lost poem
the world will be covered with you.

Your name and scent and actions
will be written and then scattered

upon pages and hearts and stones,
upon date-trees, grape-leaves, and palms

for centuries to come.

The world is unfolding inside of me
because your departure took
the east, the west, the north, the south,
the fall, the spring, the trees from me.

With chisel and hammer
I carve the length of your legs
and the width of your waists
and the bend of your arms
and the ***** of your shoulders
until I arrive at your brain
where I reach with chisel and hammer
until I come across your spring
of wisdom and knowledge
your fountain of thought and belief.

I have been chasing you
for so long
that I have scraped my knees
on the curb of eternity.

Had I told the sky
of your wisdom and importance
it would have taken the sun
and clouds and stars and moon
and draped them over you
like a canopy spun of silk.