Longing (For You)

It happens quietly,

the thought of you rising

like a tide in the body.

No storm,

only the slow insistence

of wanting.

I go walking among the fields

to steady myself.

Still, everything reminds me,

the wind moving through the grass

as your hand once moved through my hair,

the sun slipping behind the hill

as you slipped from my life.

And yet, what can I do

but love what the heart loves?

Even absence

has its own weather,

its hush,

its strange sweetness.

Sometimes I think

this longing is what keeps me alive,

this bright hunger

that turns even sorrow

into light.