The wind rustles the trees today the same as it did yesterday;

I trust without willing so, that it will tomorrow.

Her company I hope to keep, and practice the faith and love

To make it be so (I so don’t want to make the same mistake),

 

But then the wind was dry, hesitant, fast against

a soft black night that was also hazy orange and

the trees were undecipherable in form and sound and

that which was never promised, but seemed to be

 

so. I realized that what I had happened to believe

Yet without speaking it—if I had, I wouldn’t have—

Was only chance comforts and coincidental peace

The same I had prayed to have salvation from, Yet

 

I had only said the words, and never meant them.

Had willed the rest of future friendship instead

And was sleeping there only to be jolted awake

By the gusty answers to my yet unwilled words.

 

How many times must I learn and forget the lesson?

Or perhaps if remembered, one could not keep on.

Maybe I’ll keep speaking the thing that I fear and—

hidden—believing whatever goes against those words.

 

Now and at that hour when the wind was dry & fast

Because it stopped rustling the same way it always had.