water falls burning; rivers
boiling; oceans churning;
it’s never love that is wrong
if we remember how we
walked next to hand-carved
banisters; we picked them out
together; the storm won’t care;
the angels said it doesn’t matter

but it does; rebuilding a house,
it’s not home until our memories
decide to join us; can our tears
carve a new path so they can
make their way to us; can they
give thanks to the prayer that
saved our souls because all we
prayed for was to smile again?

a sea song echoing inside of
conch shells; enough to risk
singing it again alone on a still
beach; shadowed by the surge
of seabirds fleeing; their wings
promising their return as does
the melody inside the fear that
knows what it has done

when I saw you wander in without
a thought of the future; it is our
humanity crossing borders and
oceans that transported the divide
we felt when the sky was blue and
the tide was tame; and now when
it is God that tests us I reach for the
love from you that we cannot invent