That canyon deep inside--that aching, echoing chasm
where at night your pain is so loud that you can’t sleep.  
I’ve had one too, and so I ask as one who knows:
please don’t fill that canyon with rocks,
only to repeat when time weathers the rocks away
leaving the canyon empty and echoing again.
Don’t treat what hurts and ignore the cause.
Instead let your tears run, filling the canyon with a river
that’s fast and frightening.
Let me take your hand to travel in a boat up the scary waters of pain,
rowing together, moving out of the canyon to a place where nights are silent.

For every life, a life must be given.*
Nature knows this well; my mind reels in
fascination and revulsion at Nature’s ugliest things.
I am caught in wonder and disgust for the things they do.
Bacteria that thrive on flesh, parasites that steal life from life,
viruses that invade the deep and make us their home:
these are the beautiful and terrible of Nature,
slipping past our defenses to make us give our lives for theirs.

Yet, humans are clever and wise.

Clever because we get sick,
and when we’re sick, we’re fighting,
We fight on and on, we get sicker and sicker,
and when we’re most vulnerable,
when our bodies fall around us, and we shake from the fever of battle,
all the beautiful and terrible cry out in agony and
what was lost is reclaimed in health.

Wiser because some know they can give their own lives
to help each other take back what was stolen.
That is what I know.
That’s why you’ll see me there on the day of the battle.
I’ll feed spirits with faith and love,
bring medicine that weakens the enemy, and hold soldiers’ hands,
give all my hours, days, and weeks to help fight the greatest fight.
And when the battle’s won, I’ll send up a mighty cheer, toast the troops,
pack my bags, and head for home, content.
We'll live to fight another day.

We still have time*, I hear you say, but
I know we don’t, not really, because you showed me so.
I waited years for you, practiced in my patience,
comfortably sure of what supposedly was certain to come true.
And then the day came when your hugs became hesitant and
your eyes stopped meeting mine with mirth across a crowded room.
Time ran out for us, while I was taking my time.
So, dear friend, please say what you feel, do what you must,
reach for the life you know you cannot live without,
for the hours may appear many and long,
yet it only takes a second to stop the clock.

Tomorrow, dear, I’ll write to you
a poem when our day is done,
our day together in the sun
under a sky that’s blue.

The poem shall not be too long
two verses, maybe three or four,
that say quite plainly I adore
the way your hands are strong.

I’ll tell you that you make me feel
as if I’m spinning in a daze
when your eyes hold me in a gaze
that’s filled with love so real.

Your smile, dear, I’ll mention too
and remember how it shone all day
while we talked all the hours away
under a sky that’s blue.

You can’t simply say
I thought of you today
for time merely blurs the past,
and cannot ever erase the fact
that you and I were once 16
and you were all there was for me.

It was only play and simply fun.
At the moment’s bequest, the deed was done.
In front of an audience, acting the parts,
lovers with all the words written for us.
Never your Juliet, never my prince,
a quick, cold, and business-like kiss.
The hidden truth you’ll never know?
I savored this moment that wasn’t my own.
I let myself go when I kissed you and sighed,
for I knew what love felt like, for the very first time.

Our dreams are best pursued alone, we say.
Our aims are too high, our goals too important.
There’s no room to hold someone's hand
when we’re seizing the day with both of our own.  
That’s what we agree, smiling.
And suddenly, there it is, in our eyes,
the unspoken question:
In another time, where we don’t dream so big or aim so high,
would we hold hands as we walk together in the sun?