Birthday Poem

After breakfast we walked, skirting a gate and its NO
TRESPASSING sign. Our dogs off-leash, running ahead
—like the way our fingers learn how to see again—
over close-cropped grasses
in an old cane grass trucking corridor;
slowing and swerving wherever a scent
laid down before
speaks to them; pulls
their noses into shadows.
We slowly followed. You started talking about
words that sound the same, but mean the opposite. CLEAVE
In the brief silence between us, I thought either way,
that’s something we’re good at. APART.
Your house toward the ocean. My house
up mountain a few miles. TOGETHER
where all spaces between us fill up with
discovery, wrapped, unwrapped.
We drove away. Your car. My car. Your to-do
list. This poem. Casuarina, Formosan koa, Timor black
bamboo and coconut palm filling my page, swinging,
swaying. Wind. Ocean sounds, rushing, up there
in the trees. How fast, how urgently, clouds
flew past. Where have they been? Where are they
going? I want to cook tagine for you, to remember
the first time you came to my house. This time
beets and oranges. A stew for you. Everything
that was once apart, brought together. A zin
I’ve been saving. We will see the sunset. Together.
Clouds, wind, trees, everything’s on the move, including
my pen, drawing loops and knots of sound closer
to what I want to say to you. I think of the way
property owners’ gates box up the old
by-ways, giving us one day at a time, schedules
revised, no particular destination.
Two human beings. Two dogs. Leaving our scents
wherever we go, into the shadows, into
the sun, over
and over again.