The mountain lion suffers from absence
the fox its troubles in love

The waters complain 
of misunderstandings

And the distance    well
who knows 

Still there is gravity 
to hold wings close to the dust 
there is within the light a curtain

Still those I knew when I was young
gather at my bedside in the night

 trying to explain themselves
and if gods hide 
within the currents of their voices and say nothing 

that is right 

/

And yet I am concerned about the mirror
which represents but has begun to talk 
about the memories it holds of what will happen

It interrogates the stories that I tell myself

It speaks of process watching process 
of uncelebrated miracles like quartz becoming sand

/

I cannot blame the past for always changing
the dead for not staying in their graves
the lives I have not lived for their resentment
the Ubers for transporting them 
anywhere they want to go
      
In the end we must keep 
communications open
in the languages
of stones and algorithms

We must need one another
as much as constellations