You and I maybe have never met. You
May be a friend of a friend of mine
Reading these words on my Facebook,
Or – if they get published in a book –
A student in a bookstore looking for Baudelaire
Who sees one of my spines several shelves below
And, attracted by the color, picks it up
And happens on where I say we both have moments
When everything seems to make perfect sense:
When Life hands us the puzzle piece required
To complete our portion of the sky, as when
The new person we have just met and are chatting with
Over jasmine tea at our favorite neighborhood cafe
Seems absolutely the one human
We were meant to meet, clearly a messenger
Telling us something vital. Or like
When the way the sun catches the little shiny petals
Of a nondescript flower whose name you do not know,
You feel reunited with a long-dead beloved brother –
But also that you and I have many moments
When nothing important makes sense after all,
So the notion that things cohere, disappears
For what looks like forever;
Or maybe we are in-between, hardly treading water,
Discouraged, resentful,
And do not want someone to tell us in meter
Life has intrinsic meaning.
Now you are finished
Reading two chunks of what we have in common.
