A Secret Garden

For Rainer Maria Rilke

How many lives did we almost lead

before the ones we’re living found us.

How many loves were lost in the chaos

of the growing of ourselves, holes forming

in the toes of socks we once danced

together down the hallway in. A constant

knitting together and pulling apart

of the tiniest details of our daily rituals.

It hurts to be alive as the seasons change —

remembering our faces as they once were,

the foolish little sins, our disbelief in tomorrow

reaching us during the darkest nights.

The key turns to unlock a thought,

once buried, and we move now through

the threshold as translators of a foreign

tongue. To feel alive is the best reason

for living, so we keep going; pressing

our fingers deep into the soil, the ache

of mortality at our back and the possibility

of it all, budding right before us.