Bangkok

I walked through the city,
through all these lives,
and felt the gathering dust
I left my footprints in,
the same old winding track
with only one footprint showing,
the other lost in a gutter,
gone with the wind and dirt
of so many hopes laid down
to survive.

This lost soul who has seen
wild geese set against
a summer storm, white flash
like living thunder
against black background,
despair and hope
somehow side by side
with the sense that we can do it
and that what we do
does not matter,
that it’s always been just like this,
that it will be just like this
forever and forever and forever.

Stand here with me, heart,
for just one moment,
and marvel at all the ways
we have learnt to suffer,
marvel at the dust, the ash
of abandoned dreams and the love
that still moves air itself,
wiping away my last footprint
as if we had never passed,
as if we had never been here -
and always been here -
two inches above the ground,
crying and laughing
in equal measure
for all that we have done,
for all that we will do,
for the complete lack of difference
we have known intimately.

Standing in awed silence
at all the ways it is possible
to be human.

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Mary