You asked me for news from my side of the rock.
I wrote, as the days passed,
that it rains here, and I can hear you moving.
I wrote in charcoal, on the drier walls,
that the sunsets have been stunning, have been made
of dreamstuff bled across the sky
and every good one makes me wonder where you are going
when your feet scratch against stone.
The news from my side is that I keep
my nose to the wind, my ear to the breeze,
and walk on soft feet. The red rock,
the pink sky, the sun dying every night
the way we all would like to die:
Those are the news from my side of the rock.

I'll keep you my story for the quiet years,
when, with wrinkled smiles, we can sit to talk again.
I'll tell you how fires burned
on dim night horizons, and legends rode past carrying banners,
what smoke smells like at a distance.
You'll tell me how blazes
carried away lovers, drove you to ground
and ruined the sky,
how passion screamed in starlight and wolves
called.

If there is time, before we dry out together
and crumble to dust, I will dig
the other stories from the back of the cave:
lazy days of hunger to save our pennies,
the warm, slow rot of dread
or yearning that, quiet, interrupts
my sleep.
There is news from my side
of sweet memory smiles lifted lonely into the night wind,
set adrift
to chase the sound of your feet.