It is there

when a hole in the road
accommodates the water that carved it
and later, the patch that fills it,

when a mango and stone
accept their mutual need,

when a casket,
like a womb in reverse,
harbors bones

or trembling lips and reddened eyes
try so hard not to betray grief.

And it is there

in the way silence waits its turn,
when the tail of my favorite shirt
takes the smudge from your glasses

or its pocket and shoulder
absorb your unexpected tears,

in how everything is blood
in pores of dogwood,
on the curved tips of briers,

in how there is always something new,
or, at the very least, something left.

Selected byRaymond Hufffman
Image credit:Patt

Hugh does not prefer to talk about himself in the third person, but if he did, he'd tell you he's in a self-imposed exile on the east coast of the USA, but still loves his former home in the Sonoran Desert. He is the author of Odd Numbers And Evensongs and Auditions For The Afterlife.