She cut her braids, and I somehow knew.
The news reached me last night,
like a whisper carried on the breath of sleep.
I’ve never seen her hands,
but I know she wears an agate ring.
I’ve never heard her voice,
yet I imagine it reciting verses
from an old, worn book, perhaps poetry.
I know the stones that line the road
leading to her house.
I know her laughter
the way one knows the rhythm of rain
before it falls.
I know her well,
though I have never seen her
and never met her.
I met her once
on the edge of a dream,
walking on the tips of clouds.
She appeared between a whisper of hope
and a tear of longing.
She became the only light in my sky,
and her story, my silent obsession.
So what if she is far away
I loved her in the spaces between letters.
I found her in the pause between words.
My love
my dream
the one I know only by name,
a name formed from dust and stars.
A face I shaped from the breath of my longing.
A presence I feel like a nearby star,
so close I could almost touch her,
yet forever out of reach.
You are everything I know
and all I cannot grasp.
If only
if only I could see you,
your braids lost in the wind of dream.
I know you well,
though I have never seen you
and never met you.