sometimes it seems in all the words that pass between us
we have barely begun to speak.
high winds whispering in the trees and the falling of the leaves
seem to say more than we can.
rivers, ideas, time flowing past
sing songs we never master.
yet each night you return to me
we stretch across the silence.
like flowers reaching toward the sun
we recklessly communicate
the inexpressible
in embrace.

dreams pile up, cloudlike.
ideas, plans, expectations constantly moving,
building on each other into great billowing towers.
i have it all figured out.  i know exactly what to say.
and then I see you
and the emotions i'd forgotten
blow all the clouds away.
i see the sun.
i just love you.
the words...what words?
words can wait another day.

the candlelight catches
your smile and the teardrop.
some moments we touch so deeply
we can never forget.
i just can never seem to tell them quite
so bright or sharp or simple.
tonight you rest apart from me.
perhaps you wait
to feel me again
or already feel me.
so much, so little, so vast, so sweet-salty, so intense, so subtle,
so us.
the only poem that can catch that
is the one
we are.

-Josh Putnam

30 October 2003

(for Kelley)