Beginnings

Walking through the forest with little light,

eyes on stalks

or sunk back into my head understanding that

nothing they could do would help.

Slips of white moon fall between clouds and cut down

in amorphous blooms that carve roots into portions of abstraction.

We begin in breathless anticipation

of a life's headlong rush into knowledge;

young mind open like a flower to receive all understanding.

At a later time the only thing that becomes clear

is that we will never know

and however long our petals hold back against inevitable closure,

we will always be at the beginning and not the end.

Each day I begin again with you and all previous knowledge

sheds a small light on the wilderness and wildness.

We look at one another and our eyes show us only

skin, cloth, a movement in the shadows.

But I am walking through you, however unclear my path

and I know that I will find the way.