© Candice James, Poet Laureate Emerita
New Westminster, BC CANADA
I prayed for you.
You came; stayed awhile
and then left me alone
in the middle of a rain forest, heavy with tears,
pacing in circles without a compass.
The world was full of forgetting,
but I was full of remembering:
Broken promises.
Contracts signed with invisible ink.
Deep scars and shallow sleepless nights.
The truth is you are not here;
and yet, you are always here,
inside the raw red heartbeat of night,
and the long, wet tears of day.
Weary, and yet somehow renewed,
I found myself standing
outside of this rain, these tears,
and I found myself praying
I’d find this forest
and you again.
Blessed are those prayers
that remain
unanswered.