We sit across from each other—
your hands folded like old maps,
lines charting rivers I’ll never cross.

You speak in slow ripples,
each word a pebble tossed
into the still pond of memory.

Your voice is the wind’s hush
over fields that have forgotten their harvest,
and I catch stories like fireflies—
glowing, drifting, just out of reach.

You tell me about days
that wore different colors,
about love that outlasted winters,
about loss that never quite left.

I ask questions, scatter seeds,
but you answer with laughter, sighs, silence—
all the wisdom that cannot be held.

The night grows thicker,
and I feel the weight of your years
settle gently between us,
filling the spaces words can’t.

In that quiet, I learn:
life is a conversation
written on the skin, on the heart,
on the bright edge of every remembered moment.



By Diane E. Dockum
©April 25, 2026