Lingering distractions

Well, Blogger appears to be back! This post disappeared for a while, along with all the comments. Though the post has been restored, the comments weren't.  If yours is gone, I'm sorry!

Lingering distractions

Between the waking and the sleeping
were the tiny daily deaths, interrupted
by instances alive with light.
Lingering distractions.

But between the birthdays and last days,
came you, and the instances became years;
All while the dying fell to memory in shards
 just dull enough to handle.

I hadn't thought to value the safety of love
until it granted me the refuge of reflection.

I had forgotten how an entire conversation could be had
in the rapid wordless exhale of a kiss,
or how a story could be told
in the whispering of fingers on my back,

or that electrons in the atmosphere could be excited
by two people simply passing in a hall.
I recall,

and am grateful now for more than love
 and moments that span much longer
 than dawn and dusk or a planet's orbit or a lifetime.

Now, I delight in the human ability
 to define the undefinable
 and to believe, with unpretentious fervor,

  in us and this emotion.

                     Mari Nichols 

I'm five hours late for One Shot Wednesday. Here's hoping it's still Wednesday somewhere!

Your Photo

You are frozen in a frame above the mantle.
Your face thin, I notice now; but though it seems
not for the first time.

There are things I want to ask you; when I'm alone
I do. You haven't answered me yet-
this is the first promise you've broken.

It's been too many years for me to keep talking
to ink behind glass.
This photographic love must end.

My sweet memory. I should forget.