Picking Up Shiny Things

Late September in the Urals

I send these greetings to you
from so far away. I imagine folding myself
into this envelope. I have become so thin
it is nearly possible. I walk every day
into the edge of the forest, where the light begins
to change. It frightens me, but I go
deep enough to see the stand of larches
that remind me of Ekaterinburg
and you, of course.

I recall the breeze that made the leaves tremble
like your hands that first afternoon.
Already war whispered in your ear,
my rival from the start.
I kissed you there in stippled daylight.
I did not care that we were bold.
I saw your eyes as windows
open to a cloudless sky.
When your hair fell across your forehead,
a curtain of silvered silk, I was lost.
I saw then there was no retreat.

Now I fight my own skirmishes.
My enemies are small, but many.
The dying leaves that spin
and land at my feet tell me
winter waits. Every moment
that bleeds into the earth
takes me further from your embrace.

Today my hands grow cold
and shadows cross my path
in long dark rows that echo
the bars that hold you.
Still I go to see the larches
and fight, once more, the demons
of miles and hours that strive
to imprison my heart and yours
in a impenetrable tower of forgetting.