One Rose To Another



This is how you live when you are close to death. As I do: as through the dappled light of a linen curtain. I am the most beautiful now I have ever been. The sun hardly touches me.

But enough is enough.

I’ve had my sun, my moon, my loves infinite as promises- I get enough light now that I am perched here at this brink. Pulling farther away from my lover, from my own body. We’ve lasted longer than expected. I have few regrets. Had the stages of my life been clear to me all along instead of in a flash when my heart finally sprung awake- that slight palpitation as I flushed a pink so perfect the earth even took notice and stopped breathing for a moment, my own insides balking at my beauty. I regret its taken me so long to see it.

All that I love is right here with me- We have a little time left my love, this puddle of water we’ve been breathing is not quite gone we have some time left in this glass bottle.

This is how we live when we are close to death. As I do. Dreaming quietly of the seed dropping, that first morning, that first breath as our lungs opened, our petals still just a thought under soil. The words: I am the rose, and by extension, all that is good in the world still part of the sky, the rain, dew.

j pastiloff 1-22-04