<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Old Friends</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">*. . . ‘the edges’ have a curious parallel in visual physiology.*</i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">*Margins make sight possible. . .* *.*</i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class="">Paul Shepard</i></div><div class=""><i style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><br class=""></i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Sometimes I see things at the edge of light --</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">small animals scurrying into shadow</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">from the corner of my eye, sometimes a man</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">shuffling off the road, disappearing</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">between the trees, lit by headlights, then gone.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And sometimes I hear things</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">outside the sandy blur of my tinnitus --</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">the yowl of the tom hanging around for months,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">unseen birds, whose presence I scrawl on the white page,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">a machine grinding in the distance, or voices,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">the mind’s mutterings, over and over saying – what?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There it is again, *grief, guilt, love* -- my old friends,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">what can I do with your unsung laments,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">your impossible losses? Wind stirs the bamboo.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Brazen at last, without its close coat, the lily</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">blooms bright orange. Something rustles in the woods</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">and disappears in the dry leaves</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">at the edges of my life, small soft animals</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">in the corner of my eye -- not ever really</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">gone. For all our lives are intertwined, our songs</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">caught in the golden throats of the lilies,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">there at the rim of the moment, in the half-light</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">of the world, where suffering swings</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">in the slightest breeze, the slow turn</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">of petal in sunlight, each vein distinct</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">amid the gathering density of one life twisting</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">its strand with another in the great invisible braid</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">of the hidden river that moves through us.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Elizabeth Herron</div></div></body></html>