I leave for Seattle today. I'm not sure how I feel about seeing the Space Needle again or Pike Place. Standing under the sign at Starbucks without you there to take my picture.

And I can't help but suspect I'll return only to find my home in ashes.

Treasure Hunting

I

Every summer my sister and I rode in the back seat of an old yellow Ford with no air-conditioning and vinyl seats our legs would stick to. Our parents couldn't pass an antique shop without stopping. This was my initiation to treasure hunting. We'd walk up and down rows of clothes, stalls full of tattered books and every kind of nick-knack looking for that one "great catch". Once I found in the corner of an antique mall in Tifton, Georgia (known to be the Reading Capital of the World) a great piece of Van Briggle; the turquoise mug I now drink my morning coffee from. Sometimes it's the small wins that keep us coming back.

II

There's a great love buried in all of us. I've denied it's voice for so long it takes real effort to hear it now: a window slides open in an apartment on the west side. Across the street the whistle of a kettle. Two doors down, a sneeze. Most of our lives go unheard, unseen. Each morning I wade through these. Like a stroll down the aisles of some dusty roadside flea market. I search for your voice through the din. The same which coaxes flowers open at dawn. And in some mysterious corner of my cluttered being was once a small win.

Sasha reminded me of this. And it is beautiful.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

work, frustration, joy and sometimes solace

protection

Wrap you in Matthew's rose-gold light

my arms just for a night.

Habit is what keeps

us stubbornly knocking on

doors which are open.

Panning for gold I

wait for someone to bring me

more than just their dirt.