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On Being Here

by Travis Mossotti

Let's move out to the twin rockers
on the porch. I'll give you the one
facing west, and we can watch together
the yellow lab as he trots down the street;
no longer rambunctiously lean, he wears
the solid form that old, well-fed dogs possess.

We are but minor rockings to him, somewhere
in the periphery, barely extant, like any
confident neighborhood stray he keeps
his nose up, his pace steady and fixed,
on his way, perhaps, to a memorable hydrant.
You and I know time is valuable, and a poem

can only give so much, but if you've got
a minute, wait here with me that much.
I promise you any moment now a breeze
will cross over the porch to steal a little 
of the stuff that makes us us, and in this way
we'll both be giving ourselves up to the wind.

You can find this poem in Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection.