Do Not Tell Me That in Another Life You Will Leave Notes for Me Everywhere...

Do Not Tell Me That in Another Life You Will Leave Notes for Me Everywhere So That Next Time We Can Find Each Other

Bare feet on a wooden floor.
A silent hall.
Half open studio door.
A pale wall.

As if from behind a screen,
Ambiguous light.
All I have never been
Troubles the night.

In the shadow-room, the plan
Of a life I did not lead
Unfolds. Where birth began
One story, death may read

Another. If that is so,
How will I find you? see
To the heart of the story? know
Who you are, who I am, what may be?

Perhaps in a room at the end of a hall
I will idly open a book one night
To a poem. Reading, I will nearly recall
Someone. You. The rest is hidden in light.

--Phyllis Hoge Thompson