The gift of this moment is this moment,

without it there is no past, no future

since the odds of her existing are infinitesimal.

She is given the silver slant of moon,

summer’s blossoming bough,

winter’s bare branch bowing to the sky

and the sky above that, its sighing sun.

Hurry and stroll of her feet along boulevards,

in the fine line between beauty and pain.

She clings to life even in fog and rain,

putting off old age, yet coming to it

as she unrolls his napkin,

places his knife and fork on the table.

He holds out his wrinkled hands to receive them.

In this moment the city exhales deserted streets,

voices vanish into the vast song of not seen not heard

and if she goes back far enough, folds of time

fall away into the curve of boundaryless.

She recalls the ghost of love,

bodies bare in tangled sheets of youth.

Somewhere in all of this

poems press together like the power of prayer,

the ticking of time.

Sasha Ettinger is founding member of “The Three Poets,”  advisory board member of NCPL, winner of many awards and anthology publications, and author of Echoes of Light and Dark, a book of Zuihitsu poetry.