In Our Youth

we thought we might learn to capture the moment
with some new philosophy that combined technology,
syntax, and a fresh way of dancing.
We thought we might carry that moment like a smooth
stone in our pocket, a good-luck charm
we could give as a gift, to someone we might want
to fold ourselves into, in a room filled with beautiful
artifacts: masks from our courting, flutes
from our trance-dances, shawls for the cold above tree-line,
guide books and out-of-focus snapshot self-portraits
frozen in smiles that were never ours exactly,
ours forever now. We hoped we might dream
so vividly songbirds would fly from our bodies,
so we held each other gently and spoke of what we saw there—
mushrooms, maybe orchids, mostly darkness. Then we held still
and tried to hear those birds singing in the woods,
but there was only silence. So instead we imagined
their songs and sat even more still, until
we heard something deeper inside.