That afternoon.

Do you remember that afternoon

we spent beside the Rhine?

Distant sounds of other lives,

ours enclosed in meadow grass,

and sunshine,

and suspended time.

Ours enclosed in silence

so profound and strong

that I have heard its echoes

my whole life long.

Ours enclosing meanings

that we could not understand,

like the patterns of the future

on an unsuspecting hand.

The life line,

and the heart line,

and a line that has no name

that brought us, unexpectedly,

from that to this

from then to now

from love to loss,

from bliss to pain.