Our time here is always brief
a spark between two endings
the poem within the tome
on an empty shelf
a darkened room
the basement of a large mansion
tucked away among the hills
that begin to show the age
of the bedrock below
from which they spring
incessant droplets
of water
erode Everest
over eons
I will find you again
though it might not be
this next round
or the one after that
nor the next
Know that
the sadness you’ll feel
at night looking up
at planets and dreams undone
is the hole
of us
the gap between
beginnings
I will hold you here
until then
© Carlos Chagall, 2013
Alphabet City 
This is achingly beautiful.
Thank you, Betty. Sad only if you don’t take the speaker at her word. Not sure if I do, and so I cry every other time I read it. —CC