Paula

We break our surfaces as we break silence -
the light comes to some sooner than others
who must write to the quiet
behind the stories we tell with only footprints.

You waited for us to come to your meanings
with more than a little fierce love,
telling us somehow, sometimes,
that the first word is love.

Beneath these things we consider ourselves given
lie magics of a deeper making.
These are words, to be drunk and sung dizzily,
now, anytime, to life.