Best Intentions

Best Intentions

(“Then he said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit”, says the Lord of hosts.’” Zechariah 4:16)

I would have let it go, never said another word.
I am certain, I am sure what began would end except
none of us could destroy the word, we could not destroy
the soup heated up on your parent’s stove the night
before you left,
the night before you faded from my view.

We spiraled like drain water, missing each other in a vector
of years and places. I married mine, you found yours;
your baby girl was first until my son entered. We shared
our showpieces year by year; beautiful blossomed and
handsome glowed between impervious and genius and
sad.

But we never went, you and I, a year without
taking stock with phone calls catching up on
each new crisis, never disconnected once the conversation
was done.

--words misspoke, words unfastened--

No one is the victim, no one is to blame but
we both are the wounded and, we both share the same
painting we began before sailing on winds that clouded our vision
and left us here with this decade of silence and question marks.

I have counted each sorry, and measured each misspeak,
you have been kind and I can count your wounds,
but I carry a bucket (I have noticed yours, as well;
wooden, unpainted, leaking and ripened);
but I carry a bucked borrowed from a forgotten sandcastle
spilling over with the words I would say to you (and him).

You’ve heard them, and spoken them to me before,
but now the words (they cannot be destroyed) seek
the one unguarded moment when we both can react

Like the air never heard how the years marred our
best and failed intentions.