The Long Field

There are some things we both remember identically.
For example: when I was a child I was a child.

My memory is like a bird placed in a box and put into a long field.
It suffered and was softer for it. When I say suffered, I mean caught,
when I say caught I mean born. When I say born I never mean died.
Stay with me; I’m an optimist now.

Stay with me; it wasn’t a bird and it wasn’t a field.
We were fishing, alone. That’s when silence was like three rocks
Spilling from one of my hands to the other for hours.
Silence: something returning again and again.
You must have touched my head, or at least my shoulder,
you stayed with me.