Wrinkles gather

for rivulets of joy to pass through.

Skin registers the days, the years,

captures earth movements of a lifetime-

sights seen, impacts felt..

the stories awaiting coffee and a friend’s perked ear.

Faces change, hard places become soft-

another land responding to elemental embrace.

I will watch your bodyscape alter,

like your growing heart,

and smile at time and gravity’s impressions,

in that worldly deepening

of us both.