April, Unmet

Two lives moved through April, unknowing, untold,
The season held secrets it never would fold.
The blossoms were careless, the air barely knew
How longing can travel where bodies don’t go to.

I wanted him then — not loudly, not near,
But softly, the way one admits to a fear.
For even if seen, I’d have thinned like the rain,
Let presence pass briefly, then choose to refrain.

He stood by a lake where the mountains stayed still,
Kawaguchiko breathing its glacial will.
I watched from Kyoto — where drizzle would lean
On temples that taught me how silence stays clean.

I knew of his footsteps through borrowed light,
A screen-held distance that felt almost right.
By the time that I wandered the lake’s mirrored air,
The place had remembered — but he wasn’t there.

No meeting, no crossing, no hand to explain,
Just timing behaving like fate with restraint.
Only this knowing — precise, bittersweet:
That I’d see him seeing, then master retreat.

The blossoms kept falling. The lake kept its name.
April asked nothing. I answered the same.

—

Written in Japan, Spring 2024
By Casey Huang
From the Still Poetry House archive