Friendship

Friendship rarely ends by declaration.
More often it thins like a path unused,
grass rising where footsteps once agreed.
Time and distance conspire without intent,
letters unsent, calls postponed,
until silence feels less like absence
and more like a long, unasked‑about weather.

Yet some bonds do not disappear;
they hibernate.
A chance crossing, a remembered tone of voice,
and the old river finds its channel again.
Not unchanged,
banks reshaped by years,
but deeper, slower,
carrying what survived the drought.

Aging introduces a new geometry.
The young move forward with urgency,
eyes fixed on horizons that require speed.
We become pauses in their momentum,
not dismissed,
just no longer necessary to the equations of becoming.

But later…

Sometimes much later,
they return with different eyes.
They stand where we have already stood
and recognize the view.
Respect arrives unexpectedly,
not as praise but as listening.

Memory steadies the ground where blame might sink

because what was mattered,
and what remains is truth.