THE AGENCY OF OUR HEARTS
for Claudia
When we are together, our hearts skip a collective beat, joined and ready.
The world clocks another tick; and we follow, obeying time and destiny.
We pick those ticks of time from our teeth, like latent orts
from some recent, happy repast; some delectable feast of love.
Here’s what is true: Time is a trickster. His clock speeds as we age and dream,
and we embrace some remembered supple dawn of youth and fervor.
He, Time, lurches forward as youth diminishes.
Today’s year is but a glimpse, a gossamer whiff in imagined time’s passing,
shooting past us as we contemplate the swiftly coming end.
In this odd and vexing display of time’s deception, my weak heart,
aligned with your solid, happy, yearning, youthful ticker,
seeks some agency, perhaps in some odd way to restore a happy, smiling youth,
bereft of fears of this falling away of living,
living that is just and true and crawling with hope toward that final, joyful rave.
This is the agency of our hearts; this is the melding of our spirits;
this is the slipknot of our souls. We bear it now, knowing its weight,
its loft, its mystery and its victory.
By Stephen Aechternacht
October Process 