The shuddering flight of the knock
Of door on frame proclaims
That I have clocked in or out
Of your life.
So, the click of the latch
One way or another
Hatches or smothers
My presence.
I am nonexistent in your land
Until we stand in the same room
—unless I swirl in a flight of fancy across your mind.
And if I forget myself a moment,
I find a question:
Who will I be during this time?
I am I
Yet I am also as if a rock came to life before you
To bend the mountain
For or against you
I am a tiny world-maker
Who in a tiny temporary corner
sows the flow of your world in little ways,
Setting off little waves.
Who paints lightly with every action
The kind of the world that you will see.
And of course,
I can be a villain,
A bureaucrat
A controlling moralizer,
Or a disinterested stranger,
But I can also be a loving friend
Who diverts your thoughts,
and makes your world,
By the loving nature
Of the piece that is me,
A better place to be.
For if I look to what you need,
How you worry and what you fear…
Then I can steer these brief moments together
To reveal what else there is to know
And show you hope is ready to grow.
I am the one who with repeated kind words
And shining gestures
opens the way for you again and again
to make a place
Just a little more capable
Of letting you heal, stride, and thrive.
