LOTUS GAZING

5AM, we woke to rain.

The day before, when we met by the flowerbed,

it was raining.

Now the heavy drops move me, neither of us

the same as yesterday. This closeness

makes us feel younger, almost a couple.

You’re not too shy to kiss my cheek. At once I recall a line

that touched me deep: “Perhaps the sweetest hour

in our lives.” And so it seems,

as if that part of me remained unbroken,

but buried all this time

without a trace. We strolled through rain,

through green transparency. All autumn

your rain-wet hair kept on dripping water.

Few saw us walking the campus at 5AM

beneath peach trees I’ve awaited

spring after spring. And then the wave-lipped lake:

a sea in a spoon. But how can a spoonful

swell to an ocean? We gazed at the lotus.