I say nothing to anyone,
for fear of my struggles being common.
If indeed this grief is normal, what a sad world we have created.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Each day
The weight of a leaf

Falling
into a pile
we gather
up
at the end

Each leaf is 5 grams;
but the pile
weighs
hundreds of
pounds

No weight in our hand
Simply the feeling
Of crisp form

Its corners, ridges,
And variegation
of hues

Some days we conclude in prayer,
“Oh, thank God it’s over,”

Yet it counts,
this one leaf,
filling our bin of days

Experiencing
Ourselves,

One leaf at a time.

She said "I'm falling in love."

I said "I'm falling apart."

there was a time
we broke the bones
of each other's poems
and savored marrow
explored what made them breathe
sought out
warm arterial pulses
examined the hearts
to find the essence of their lives

it was vital to us
in the truest sense of the word

life today is too cheap
to waste that much time