Two Word Poems

How I've Known You

The moment before thunder,
relief after rain.

The striving in the furled leaf,
fall of the last petal.

Ribbon of desire, the winding
path, illuminated.

The wave's swell and surge,
its crest and its breaking.

Breath and breathlessness,
my heart's patient visitor.

The question unasked
and unanswerable.

The shape of the thought,
the word before it finds my mouth.

 

Habitude

Where I come from, people stay,
take hold. They've grown
accustomed to the way days
swell and subside, take comfort
in the mysteries of night.
They know a field at dawn
as a rippling of green and gold,
the illuminated river, a twisting
ribbon of light. When one leaves,
he always returns a visitor,
needs to knock at every door.
No one asks for more or less,
or speaks of before or after.
No one asks the kind of question
that has no answer.