Following the end of the blue waterway
an alley not on any map
where the glass fog has lifted
an unknown season is breathing
Under old eaves, a small market
people without names gather
sharing what is not for sale
stories of days never lived
A child closes his eyes and says
it has never snowed here
but the sound of footsteps on a white morning
I clearly remember it, he says
An old woman smiles and says
the name of a child she never bore
she never once held him
and still her arms are warm
People who never were, days that never were
why are they so vivid
Nothing remains in the records
yet they all miss it with the same face
A season that never was lives here
a spring that never came is blooming
at the end of a road I've never walked
someone is waiting for me
I miss a night I never lived
an unknown wind feels familiar
something I cannot call a lie
a season that never was lives here
A young man sets down his teacup
and remembers a woman he saw for the first time
with that person he never met
he says he lived a rainy summer
The two of them, strangers to each other
hum the same line of a song
neither one ever learned it first
yet they land on the same final note
I watch them quietly
and suddenly smell wet pine
there are no pine trees here
but my chest remembers first
Unfamiliar scent, familiar warmth
the body knows before the mind
a place I have never once been
why do I look at it as if I'd come back
A season that never was lives here
a spring that never came is blooming
at the end of a road I've never walked
someone is waiting for me
I miss a night I never lived
an unknown wind feels familiar
something I cannot call a lie
a season that never was lives here
Name the date — there's no record
name the coordinates — it's not on the map
show the proof — there's nothing
so why does my heart know
A scent and a warmth that can't be measured
a name and a face never registered
with one word, "it never existed"
you cannot erase even this longing
Whose memory am I walking in
who lived this season first
did the poem make the memory
or did the memory write the poem
Then the wind blows once
the blue knot trembles in my hand
for the single moment my eyes are closed
I am standing somewhere else
Wet sand
a winter sea
the smell of pine
and one person
I cannot see the face
but I know that he has left
Why does it hurt
it never even happened
Why do I miss it
I never even lost it
A season that never was lives inside me
a spring that never came is blooming
on a shore I have never been to
my footprints remain
A parting I never lived hurts
an unknown name catches in my throat
now I cannot call it a lie
a season that never was lives inside me
Blue dawn, wet sand
open my eyes and it all disappears
and yet the scent left on my fingertips
For the first time
I remembered a day that never was