Seven days.
Seven days 
to you I would say, 
and you would look at me
with that pure light that shone 
from beneath your lashes
as if by their lidded plea
I should have known
we would have ended,
all our pain extinguished, 
and it was you I needed
when I first saw you that late afternoon.

The wind in your hair
lit bright sparks of gold 
braided and strung by fireflies
and sang in the warm mysterious air
your song along the coast of Panama.
Inside the music of the bold
thrill of the blue orchid flower
your heart beat fast that summer
as we danced at the cove marina, 
the night embraced us in its tropical guise.

Yet it was this way
when we walked together, 
and you looked at me, 
tentative and attentively, 
and I was glad to stay,
you made me so much better,
you saw what I could not
that me you had just taught 
your depth by the cool water.

And it was then 
you came to me beside the sea,
to where my thoughts have strayed,
and though I tried
in your deep breath to hide
I was close but could not evade,
to voice just when, 
in time and space I found in you the key,
to then reveal that day
in you I had seen,  
your look and soul had saved me, 
a look so powerful and so serene, 

Yes, in the clarity
left when a touch of your hand
erased all my mourning,
in that cool morning arose
in me a sense of purpose,
as I was dismayed to see 
the eonian cosmos of your eyes
in the supernal flight of a toucan's wing
was a sign of wisdom to set us free 
in the humid palm of salt sea air and sand,
for you are the woman that had always
patiently awaited me without either of us knowing,
before those seven days.