At one time, I walked with you through white barked forests.
and hand in hand I found
that a quiet stillness held my breath
in my chest.  
a calm quiet. a sacred quiet.

The leaves upon the trees
were shifting and shimmering a
turquoise blue and green liquid-ocean canopy, such that reaching out
I held such beauty.

Fingertips, caressing smooth, white bark, and then a
shudder-shiver as the leaves revealed themselves a twittering cacophony, which
in a single breath out, took flight with brush of wing.

And some words spoken softly, knowingly,
at a kitchen table in a home bereft of embraces,
held such a beauty that all other truths had been forcibly forgotten—
for beauty, in itself, is a truth.

And now in an empty room
of windows,
a chair sits at a kitchen table facing a white barked forest.  
The linoleum floor is barely worn—a thick residue coats
chilled air.  

No patter of feet across this floor, no laughter, no tears.
And in an empty room of windows, one pane is fogged
Facing,
   the white
          barked
   forest