The Other

splashes in the pond
acknowledging my presence,
as close as it will come to saying
I once was one of its own.
The long silence accepts what I am
and what I may become.
We translate one another
without challenges; respect
a tongue rarely shared
or spoken, an unwrapped gift
celebrating the worn marks,
the edges of possibilities
returning, flowing, rising
and returning, gathering again
and flowing beyond.
One beyond the other.

Richard Weaver volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, the Baltimore Book Festival, and is the writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. Other pubs: FRIGG, Mad Swirl, Spank the Carp, Adelaide, Dead Mule, and Magnolia Review. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and provided the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005), performed 4 times to date. More recently, his 140th prose poem was published.