Relationships

   by Caroline Johnson

A yellow goldfinch on a tall sunflower
pulls seeds from the brown center,
gathering what he needs, while
every day life slips away from us,
a smile lost, a hug that never quite
reaches outstretched arms.  We yearn
for symbiotic relationships—a nod of
the head, the ring of the cell phone,
horseback riding with a friend, easy
conversation with a cup of Java.
We need the familiar among the strange,
turning on a light switch in a darkened room,
petting a cat whose whiskers graze your hand,
understanding a sentence in a foreign tongue,
cutting your knee only to have a nurse dress it.
Losing your senses only deepens the connection—
a Braille book describing sunsets, a signed
conversation about Spanish infused Jazz.