The Gift of Touch

Everything is impermanent, I say 
Thinking of the way coffee loses heat
And the birds stop chirping when the conversation is complete
And your imprint, one day, is no longer on my seat

I’ll miss showing up in the world as a student
Permission to be silly and wild
Permission to let go of perfection and control
And grab the hand of my inner child 

Do you embrace that part of me?
Watch me scamper, giggle and sing?
Looking for the deer in the meadow
Joining young bodies on the trampoline 

Squatting in the offices
Prepping our hips for older age
Writing in the snow
Throwing plates to release our rage
One foot in front of the other
We move ourselves in multiple ways

I notice the geese, forming a V
Soaring through the sky
It seems that they protect each other 
Better than you and I

It seems there’s a lot of ‘them’ and ‘us’
Don’t we know we’re on the same team?
This polarization turns us against each other 
Ripping at Democracy’s seams
 
Shit, that turned political
I was trying for the natural dopamine
To rouse the parts of you that remember 
The experience of beautiful things

I’m talking about the geese again
And the way leaves tremble in the breeze
When your cold skin touches a sun warmed bench
And the alternation guy waives the fees

I’m talking about the taste of frozen cheesecake
And watching a child run to their mom
A hug that squeezes the breath out of you
Because they held it a little too long

The frogs are croaking outside my window
The softness of nightfall in spring
The softness of my pillow and dreams 
Where I remember beautiful things