almost missed you but not quite

well i almost missed you

but not quite because

I must have got there before

you arrived or you arrived right after

I left the shopping mall and stepped into the tree lined parking lot.

You may have been driving a vehicle

or waiting for the bus at the bus stop

but I knew you were not there when

I looked up and saw no one standing there.

I thought I could hear you say hello

but when I opened my ears all the noise of traffic

from the streets and the beeping

of the crosswalk and the music from the cantina

with the open doorway for an entrance

crouched into my auditory canal.

I would have spoken to you

but the wind came along and with

the clouds my voice vanished like

the feathers of the birds which started and ended

their song before I could hear them.

I thought I could feel you under my skin

but the warm sun must have enticed you

because the rain that followed lapped

at my hair and the jacket I was wearing

because I neglected to let it rest on your shoulders.

You must have been there because

your presence seemed to slip through me like an aura,

like the aurora borealis they say is at the top of the world

and fills the night sky with the ringing of lanterns

which glow in the horizon like the candles

they set on the paper boats

iin the still waters which lap at the feet

of happy children under a sky filled with moon and stars.