Beside Me (Happy Birthday)

It has been twenty of your birthdays
since I first saw you walking
in the afternoon light;

you slipped away for a time,

but later
we floated in the
midnight darkness of the lake,
timidly watched the sunrise
from granite steps.

This day bears little resemblance
outside the presence of you and I
and want of a breeze;
others in between are half-forgotten,
depending on photos in an album
to remind us —

yet still I see you walking

and wish you might come
to sit down beside me.

19 thoughts on “Beside Me (Happy Birthday)

    1. bussokuseki's avatarbussokuseki Post author

      Thank you. It is certainly the effort I am making with my poetry – how to take this moments of my life and strip them down to their ultimate simplicity. So many things can get in the way, yet…there it is.

      Blessings~

      Reply
  1. sosparkly's avatarsosparkly

    Loved the line “we floated in the midnight darkness of the lake”. It seems like a good metaphor for many instances in life.

    Reply
    1. bussokuseki's avatarbussokuseki Post author

      Thank you so much for saying so… What amazes me often about poetry (and life) is how the literal moments can become such perfect metaphors, each serving the purpose of the other…

      Be well~

      Reply

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