The river hums a song
too old for sorrow,
carving its path through stone and silence.
A mother stands at its edge,
toes sinking into
the earth’s quiet breath,
her fingers remembering
the weight of a hand
that once fit so easily in her own.

The wind shifts, restless with ghosts.
A name catches on the air—
half-formed, unfinished,
like a whisper left behind in the throat.

Somewhere, a prayer unravels.
Somewhere, the mountains swallow a cry.
The world moves forward, indifferent,
while she waits in
the space between moments,
between memory and forgetting.

What is love, if not a promise to hold?
What is grief, if not love unreturned?
She watches the river,
listens to its knowing—
how it takes, how it carries,
how it sings,
never asking if she is ready to let go.