Before


Before the music ends
I am.

Before the setting of the sun
I am.

Before ever perfect thought was dreamt
I sang -

And in the song that goes on, even as I shut my mouth
there is a long mile I have walked.

In the coming together of two hands, outstretched        -          Two parted lips,
two trees conjoined, there is joy bound to the marriage of true contemplation.
A distillation of peace.

Before the music ends, beyond the rhythm of a day
is calm            strung                        at arm's length
between twin motes of dust.

Nothing more than this       adrift             on a single note.

Ride on.        

            Ride on. And in my heart play this again.
Bend me over a day and into a night,
find me after you have mailed out the last letter
of days gone by                    in silence.


Before these words, finding themselves              within and
indisposed.

My forgetful temperance, fear held down by a pink nightgown
put on only after I tossed these little white gloves across the back of the chair.

These things I know are liminal, never forced but taken in at half-breaths.

Steps.

            My steps. Undaunted by completion.

Before the music ends
I am
not waiting but begun.

- Kate White