All thoughts empty into this—you pausing before your door, turning, waving as I swing the car around and leave. Waiting, waiting that instant, waiting for me.
It’s a gesture as natural to you as breathing, warm blood through veins, heartbeat. You wouldn’t guess, couldn’t guess, the meaning it holds for me—burning life into cold lungs, gifts offered freely, open hands palm up, touching, touching across yards, miles, mere skin bearing simple heat, kindness, generosity.
It is now, days later or years, you standing and waving but only memory and scratches on paper. You read my words, look up from the page, wonder at my response, think the gesture but simple courtesy, common as falling leaves in autumn. I forgive you that but tell you this—thank God you’ve never been alone; trust me as one who has stood in that void and knows saving light when offered, you being that light, light people spend long years, whole lives, searching and not finding, dying famished. You spare me that end, and I thank you, again.
Tall trees bend before humble gods—I bow before you, ask only to live within the comfortable radiance of your life.