Rain fell steadily today.
It always makes me wistful.
No matter, more hours to spend
in the warm tent of our love.

But you are silent and far away.
Where? You can never say.
I have seen this chasm before;
it is uncharted and buried deep within you.

And when I try to excavate, you dissolve
into a smile that could melt a glacier.
“Our love is the truth,” I heard you say,
not long ago.

Today is different.
You are mute, frozen, alone                      
on a dead planet without a name,
orbiting a dead sun.
I cannot hail you,
my precious, my sphinx,
across these light years of the soul.

“It will pass,” you say, and in time it does.
But this ghost, as ancient as thee,
never sleeps.

Under us the ground is always shifting,
unstable like our California.
I still think my love is all you need.
Am I a fool, a saint -- or a target?