An Introduction

Her

She was written into being as a salve,

not the kind the wounded seek but

the respite and relief they need. 

The bandage of a friend's knowing smile, 

a well timed embrace under sunshine. 

Her healing guided by her worship of

Timing and Context, and Fate's endless love, 

she locked away her own pain, kept it

to study sympathy for how can you heal

if you do not know what it is to be in pain?

Strong and delicate, she met him where

the roads join in their singular mission of

delivering the gifts of now and the promises

of tomorrow revealed in the path ahead. 

Him

Stories are often told in hearts and minds,
in battles and scars, in the fulfillment

of a goal accomplished and wars won.

But the best chronicles are quiet

featuring unknown beginnings and ends.

They are told through the drumbeats of

connections shared with all those

you were and are and never will be.

His soles were callused, encompassed

by skin self-sacrificing for his protection.

Familiar with the gnaw of hunger, with

the drive that propels people through

the impossible and the unimaginable,
without saying anything at all he told
a story of his wounds, a salve, and
the road he trekked to find her.