Ask Not

Ask not of love, nor of the shadow,
nor why one leaf still hangs above,
while wispy voices time can’t freeze
go dancing off among the trees—
and shout into the cold: Hold on!
as if the night cared who was gone.

My infant’s tender hand in mine,
small fingers curled, those little lips
pressed warm against a father’s cheek—
enough to set the heart aflame—
are gone before we find a name
for what we felt.

A second.
Maybe two.

(And time, damn time, has things to do.)

So we take root,
dig heels into the stubborn earth,
and guard the edges of the light
against whatever waits beyond—
as though by holding hard enough
we might persuade the world to stay.

Ask not the name of fear.

Name it too long
and we become the thing—
that shadow skulking by the wall,
that stranger in the looking glass
who stares us down and softly asks:

Did you feel it?
The hurt?
A mother’s cry?
And did you love—
or just ask why?

Until our hands grow tired.

We let go.

Let the heart open, then,
like flowers making fools of spring,
let colors wander into rooms
that solitude has painted gray.

Love has never been much good
at explaining itself anyway.

Ask not
if love is right—

 September 16, 2026
written on the morning train to Zürich, beneath a fluorescent pink-and-red sky