From Out the Cave

When you have been

at war with yourself

for so many years that

you have forgotten why,

when you have been driving

for hours and only

gradually begin to realize

that you have lost the way,

when you have cut

hastily into the fabric,

when you have signed

papers in distraction,

when it has been centuries

since you watched the sun set

or the rain fall, and the clouds,

drifting overhead, pass as flat

as anything on a postcard;

when, in the midst of these

everyday nightmares, you

understand that you could

wake up,

you could turn

and go back

to the last thing you

remember doing

with your whole heart:

that passionate kiss,

the brilliant drop of love

rolling along the tongue of a green leaf,

then you wake,

you stumble from your cave,

blinking in the sun,

naming every shadow

as it slips.

--Joyce Sutphen