The oak and the Swallow

The Oak and the Swallow 

estefaaano_writes

I could pen a thousand elegies about endings, 

bleed words onto pages that hold every 

deep lodged thought in the corners of your mind.

or I could choose the weight of your breathing beside me,

how morning light moves across your shoulders,

finding its way home.

I think I'll take the second path.

Let's buy that house in Tuscany,

the one with broken shutters and wild rosemary

growing through the cracks.

We'll renovate the cellar into something beautiful,

invite everyone,

even the neighbor with her poised lips and polished soles

who judges our guffaws from behind lace curtains.

We'll make risotto from scratch,

saffron threading gold through arborio rice

while conversation spills like wine

across our imperfect table.

When the one who holds the world,

pulling strings and making it spin,

decides our chapter has reached its final page,

I hope you know that I'll be there for you

no matter what.

I will be your constant.

If you return as a swallow,

looking down at the world with new eyes,

searching for a place to rest

I'll be the oak tree you come home to,

my branches wide enough to cradle

your wild heart through every storm.

I can shed a tear for my sorrows,

count every crack in this fragile heart

build statues to the moments 

love left me to surrender breath, 

or I could stand at my window,

watch brilliant minds tear truths apart

about things they'll never fully understand.

There, across certainty and wonder,

That's where freedom dwells.

I am finally empty of answers,

finally done asking the wrong questions.

Had to be broken completely

to learn this beautiful truth…

none of this was ever about me.

And somehow, that makes the morning light

on your sleeping face so sacred,

it catches my breath,

turning a run-of-the-mill Monday

into the very first day

God thought to create the world.