inspired by e.e. cummings’s 'into the strenuous briefness’

how many hellos
has the earth heard?
how many beautiful beginnings
has she seen?
how many roses has she bloomed,
and how many of them have been gifted?
how many hellos
have given way to friendship and
love,
how many of them have turned into light?
she keeps them all,
the roses and hellos,
turns them into poems
and turns them into time,
sunrises and sunsets,
beginnings and farewells,
you and me
in between it all.