as had always been,
but on this day
from the corner of my eye
I saw you stumble,
no complaint
just a little stumble,
and it occurred to me for the first time
that when I once saw you looking up at me
with a look deep in your eyes
that said you knew something that I did not yet know
that you were right, that something was changing
that though I could in grim determination
cast a sea anchor to keep the bow with the wind
we would one day see the bottom of the sea
perhaps not together
perhaps one, then the other
but just as surely as the gray silt shifts far below us
in the uncaring tug of the current
that surrounds and carries us
to wherever it is that we will eventually go.