The Hermit Poet

I will be a year older. I will no doubt find more gray and red in my hair. My skin will roughen. Stubble will grow its dark unrelenting field on my chin and cheek. When I leave through the door, I will hear the familiar music of my bones, my legs and arms moving their kind symphony of circles. I will love the not-quite dark of the early morning. I will know nothing more than what the clouds carry in their veils. Nothing more than the sound my empty wallet makes when the wind whistles through. I will want because I am wanting. I will dream. I will love. I will still be here for a little while longer.

Tomorrow, somewhere else in the world a woman will wake not knowing I love her. I will not know her name. We have not met. Or maybe we have. Or maybe our shadows have passed by each other in a hallway. Or just our words. There is only a smallest statistical chance of us meeting. I will write a letter to her. I will call it a poem. But it will refuse to be a poem. It will be a bottle in the deep embrace of a wave. It will be an ocean. It will be the moon, or whatever the moon leaves behind for the trees. I will be a tree. Or maybe the earth. Or maybe salt. The taste in her mouth she cannot name.