I dream a different life
safe in bed;
a life in my head;
but how hollow 
it feels without the faces of my charges.
How to handle
this bittersweet dichotomy?

Here I gaze at fifty, still confused.
How did I come so far, so bruised?
Nothing healed and nothing decided.

At twenty I thought I knew it all.
Maybe that’s how I pushed forward, toward
hope.
My brave boat of delusions sailing forth,
toward the amorphous you, my own true north.

I see your face now all the time,
hear your voice and think,
why didn’t I meet you twenty years ago?
How can the sun rise every day,
like the world welcomes light?
How can I give up each closed down night?

I give my life for love, but just to give it.
I try not to grieve.
Maybe in the next life I can receive.
Until then I try,
with grace
to simply live it.