No return

I haven’t stepped into your spaces, years

have passed like days, the pleated seasons swung

their skirts of springs and autumns, and austere

winters chased off summers’ trailing songs flung

down randomly. None of us the same - young,

and rarely the flutter of heart that steers

blood into obscure nooks of veins. I’ve been among

such remoteness! lost words cupped in my ears.

Yet I come back and I come back and there’s

still no return, the pathways peter out

in green resin-scented forests, stone stairs

of temples raised to complexities of doubt

stranger spaces close ranks and rude sharp glare

of sunlight and its baffled pursed up mouth.