Now and then, I feel the clock stop ticking
I feel the parallels, keeping us on track
Let loose beneath an even greater force
And the world becomes honest
If this force were to submit and be humbled
Enough to take a name
I might be tempted then to call it love
But it is more than love
So, I might call it safety or warmth, too
But, so special seldom does it strike me
That I have yet to dare name it
All I can properly give to make clear
A better sense of why this force
Does shake my mind
Does shake my heart
Does stir in me meaning otherwise uncompelled
Does the clock stop
Does leave the world honest, de-comprised, unparalleled
Is to tell you
It holds like unconditional arms of a mother
It smells like just the right cooking from
Just the right turn of dusk in grandma’s old kitchen
It feels like a spot where the trees’ shadows
Leave dancing strands of filtered light
To brush a shoulder on a breezy summer
It sounds like a silence to the clashing sounds
Of all life’s petty games, forfeited
The players unshackled from hollowing rules
It looks like your first celebration
Where your mind did not know to wander out
Beyond the confines of the joy engulfing that moment
It bends time
So that each instance of its presence
Melds into what it was then
And its next visit will bring me to now
When I feel the warmth in how
I love you so
I can see my child smiling back
From long ago
