To be articulate was just enough.

I was a breeze on the river's surface

       that did not disturb the fish. And in rough

seasons, I scuffed and averted my gaze.

       Yes, that is why you forgot. What is lost

is something I never had or wanted

       and may have been what comforted me least

when felt vicariously or hinted.

       Yet we stop at the river mouth to talk

about a weather station, unnoticed

       at sea until this present sky of silk

and an evening wind, blowing south east.

       Turning, the past seems so thin that neither

of us can truly say we shared it now.

       and we agree, this time, that the weather

station will tell us all we need to know.

       Better, I think, to keep our names coded

and committed to memory, our words

       in their last glow before being faded

by a dark into which run all the roads.