The Empty Necklace

We each have one, made over a lifetime

of the empty moments in between, when

everything is still and complete, each a

clear bead strung on the invisible chain

of our experience.

I’m thinking of the long silence after

we talked for months about what it’s

like to be alive.

Or the time in winter when the snowy

pines were creaking and swaying a

hundred feet up like the eye of the

earth opening slightly.

Or the time in early fall when you

were pinching a pot in the sun

and our dog was chewing on a stick

and I started to cry.

And the moment I woke from surgery

too soon and my soul had to decide

which way to swim.

And sometimes, when the wind sweeps

the next task from my mind, I am

returned to the moment before I

was born: floating with a brief sense

of all there is, just as I was ushered

into the world with our need to

find that feeling between us.