But I Am Still

6.26.22

I am still here
I mean I am
unmoving

My ears burn
and my face is tight
with Tucson air
and I am in want of water

But I am still

I sit with my book and pen
once again
after having left it closed,
unopen to fresh ink,
while I stood in a lake
troubled by death
and listened

What did I hear?

I heard a heart bleed
for handwriting

I felt the caution of a hand
trying to hold an unlit spirit
sensitive to its ash pile fragility
and bracing helplessly against the
winds of time that thin
us all out