Open hands

Heart in the soles of my shoes stumbling over the cobblestones of Soho. I am smiling up at cherry blossoms and skyscrapers, into the faces (ecstatic sad blank) that pass by, into images of myself mirrored in shop windows and (plastic) blinded office buildings. I listen to the rush of steel and glass, yellow and black, deadly bumblebees buzzing by on asphalt flightpaths. I listen to private public conversations in five word snippets: a mish-mashed history of a city in featherlight personal fragments. I am rehashing the past and re-imagining the future and I am overjoyed and mournful and thankful and drained. I am here wandering the streets talking about the ghosts of what we were, what we (who?) are now. We (all) are always ghosts to one another, ephemeral and full of nostalgic snapshots, all sepia backgrounds and Kodachrome sunsets.

I am still tumbling through the emotions of the sea, the water within trembling and salty. Land under my feet feels less grounded than the ocean under flexing limbs.
I have shifted, I am shifting, I will shift and its hard to tell if there is a moment without such movement. What is stability? What is the opposite of change? Stagnation does not appeal but the notion of forever flowing downstream, forks, branches, boulders challenging the way, is daunting. Where is my compass? Where are my oars in this corporal raft of mine? I know they are somewhere close by but the turbulence shakes them out of my grasp.
Then I realize:
my hands are clenched, unable to hold anything.

I relax, think on the perfection of the stars and the wind over white-horsed water, the intimacy of palm to palm and the heart fluttering capacity of sideways glances. I think on years remembered and savored with knowing souls (ghosts are real too) and lush green veins in perfect oak leaves.
My hands open, ready to hold it all.

We are love, we are change, we are flowing in the eternal.
We are the city and sea, we are the salt and wind.
We are.