Teach Us To Number Our Days

The sun was golden and rising,
the gardens reverent in morning green,
draped in long shadows damp with dew,
the air was bowed and still,
and I found you in the expectant mausoleum,
templed of marble in creams and browns,
carved and ancient, a place for worship
and old sorrow,
a place patiently created for the one,
a traveler who might come to receive
wisdom freely given,
from an alms box open
to the reaching tattered soul.

I did not pass through,
I never left,
did not return to the old,
but moved in and began
to spend my days and nights
with you in your music
without any pounding beat,
that never pauses
even to breathe.