After she flew, the garden remained.
It remained the way things linger
when they’ve been seen too much:
quiet,
wrapped in a kind of weariness.
The ground holds traces of light footsteps,
but no longer asks for a path.
Roots sleep beneath the earth,
and the air around
seems to carry a warm memory.
I remained as well.
Or perhaps I kept staying
with the hours that slip from an unfinished gesture.
She went on
like a flight that does not repeat itself,
but leaves in the sky
the memory of having been possible.
The weight arrived slowly,
settling on my shoulders
like time when it no longer needs to be measured.
Where the sunflower once bloomed,
the earth shelters a yellow silence.
There is still a hint of light
in the way the leaves lie still.
The body walks among shapes
that never needed to exist.
It speaks words that expect no hearing.
A prayer folds itself
midway through the sentence.
The name endures —
and that is enough.
The poem touched where the skin was open.
It made a home.
It remains in the flesh,
even if the eyes never gathered it.
Perhaps it was read,
or merely brushed by the wind.
But what is offered
does not ask to be received.
The garden aligns with time.
Falling petals
take part in a dance
without audience.
Nothing here waits for miracles.
Beauty fulfilled its cycle
in the instant it was whole.
No wing returns,
but in the air
there is a trembling from an ancient flight.
The gesture remains,
even if no one saw it.
The gleam remains,
even if it never reached its intended heart.
And I, who once sheltered that presence,
am now open space,
folded inward.
And I, who once spoke in verses,
am the pause between sounds.
And I, who was a garden,
am light matter,
carried by breath alone.
I remain.
In the dream that still moves,
in the waiting that asks for no shape,
knowing —
knowing without wound —
that there was flight.
And that is real.