It's the flute in the middle of the moonlit boat ride
It's the skull you've been holding since Act One
It's the green light across the water at your own party
It's the car backfiring while you're buying flowers
It's the comedy where someone asks about your parents
It's the corridor you find after the banquet hall
It's the letter you shouldn't have opened on a Tuesday
It's the photograph face-down in the drawer
For all of us who wrestled brilliance and madness
in the same boat ride, the same glass of wine —
the moon rose slow and the mist kissed the river
and we thought: this time, maybe this time
And then the flute —
It's a little too minor, a little too thin
It's not even sad, just almost
It's a thread of sound that finds the crack
And the whole bright night leaks out
I sat with the moon and the flute on the river,
melancholy hiding in the branches, too clever.
The stillness, the water, the breeze — a moment finds forever.
To Red Cliff, to all who wrestled the dark — another swivel.