je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

Have not chatted in awhile,
me rutted in NYC,
a city of constant tear down
and sometimes flashy urban human
renewal...

While you,
you getting on with life,
growing up, growing down,
buying clothes for a new school season,
or growing children,
or boxing up now grandchildren memories of memories...
falling in love, writing poetry all about it...

You,
in Nepal, Malaysia, India,
Seattle, Portland, and the Florida's panhandle,
the US Midwest sainted hinterlands,
the South, that makes one love water,
water that has travelled from the faraway,
island continent of professorial Australia,
Did I forget the Philippines?

worse sin committed,
is that in
your poetry
I have not toe dipped,
quite the long erstwhile,
after loving it with
obsession devotion...

so just a Saturday afternoon
note penned just to you
and you alone...

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

So by way of apology,
craft a poem for you exclusive,
more than each word, letter,
every syllable, tongue tasted
for conjuctivity,
breadth and thus discovered
notes of red soil, raspberry, lemon,
even a hint of sweet masquerading as a
salty kindness in our veins,
our unique vintage of connectivity

Your hand to my lips raised,
grasped twice, by mine both,
slow lifting with stature, affection and respect,
kiss it and whisper just enough for
we two to hear...

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

even this seems weakly insufficient,
but care taken nowadays,
a new economy of words,
write less, think more, and
give up the truly deserved words only
as a mark of my fondness and respect

these come on no schedule,
often months in the making,
so forgive-me-not my unsweetened silences,
accept them with easy knowing that

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)

the summer man wintered in discontent,
his journey now disrupted by forces exogenous,
stealing his vision, jailing him in between
walls of indecision, knocking down
his own twin towers,
but carelessly not making provision
to tell you well and often enough

je pense bien à toi
(i think well of you)*

Sept. 13, 2014