I will cherish this hello because
we don’t know when
we might be saying good bye

We don’t know how, we don’t know why —
we might be rent asunder by events,
or maybe we will drift
along the currents of our attention
and not notice
till we haven’t seen each other
in a long time

You may visit me in a dream,
I may wake up feeling unmoored
from my accustomed havens.
We may not know how
to talk to each other anymore

But all this speculation
may be keeping me
from this connection,
this perception, this igniting,
this hello.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2018