Waiting for the outcome of serious surgery affecting someone I cared about left me plenty of time for introspection. This poem derived from some of the thoughts that came to me during nine long hours.

Waiting Room

How often I am counseled
To seek an impossible intimacy
And so am in danger of missing
The kind that counts.
I cannot give voice to real secrets
(The ones hidden even from me)
Much less understand another's
(translated thought is diminished).
Intimacy finds place for whispers
In its generous fabric,
Woven as often in noise as in quiet.
Its thresds are all our moments,
Good and bad, exhausting and exalted,
Soft enough for comfort,
Strong enough for the storm.
When we're willing, we can become
The knots that bind its warp and woof.