It’s all been dampened by the rain

And I have begun seeing the same couples

pass me on the street

and the same shadows crisscrossing the river

The church is too crowded with tourists

to be a haven anymore

And the pubs are too loud

And the cafes are too bright

Everything has shifted slightly forward

and left me a blue note behind

And there’s a memory pressing its face against the window

and sticking its tongue at me

But I can only make out its outline

for the fogged-up glass

The rain bleeds through my shoes

And my thoughts bleed through my shoes too

and spill out behind me

leaving little puddles on the sidewalk

Each building is the color

of the eyes of a lover lost

A cowardly pale coral

A regretful deep cerulean

A divorced mahogany

that looks almost black against the sky

The sky which is the color 

of my eyes when I dream

grey and misty and cold

The snowflakes fall

and disappear

like money 

And the streets swirl in little eddies

of impenetrable acquaintance 

And yes 

parts of the world have turned their back on me

but who hasn’t had that happen ?

I grew up in trees

I grow up in cities

My hair grows diligently

The light flows through the windows

diaphanous and shy

My hands freeze

And rivers cut themselves across them

Rivers which will become canyons

in the time it takes a sequoia to blink

Who doesn’t love to skate up to the brink ?

To totter on the treacherous ice ?

To feel gravity’s potential ?

There is a cathedral

I have yet to see

whose buttresses are almost in flight

whose columns are impossibly round

whose trompe-l'œil walls reach staggering heights

whose shadows are so dark 

they swallow your words

before you utter them

One day I will find this cathedral

I wonder what color it will be ?

I wonder what echoes my footsteps will make

as I kneel at the mysteries

it has in store for me ?