Another beloved strides out of my life.

Some smoker pauses
head bent over their cigarette
matchstick poised to flare and shimmy under
streetlight
but the waiting moment stretches
infinitely

With sweet shock I realise there is a breeze
playing around us both
made suddenly material
in the space/ the pause between
spark and fulfillment

Then can we wonder how things unseen
or only felt
become visible when
inconvenient

Yearning

for the moment

pressed somewhere into the weft of my childhood
Aslan smiling
-if lions can smile-
when three small British children find out
that they need never leave Narnia again.