It is a pact within a sacred partnership: If you lose the way home, I will come for you. If I lose my way, you will come for me. If we are both lost, someone must find a way to outstretch a hand and come back to the heart.

—Alexandra Roxo, from “Dare to Feel: The Transformational Path of the Heart”

•••

Dear friend: I fear that
we have become separated
on the journey—

you so far ahead of me,
I lingering behind—or
perhaps the other way

round—that we cannot
hear the other’s voice or
detect familiar footsteps.

Of its own accord,
I feel my handless heart
outstretched,

remembering two
pulsing souls who, though
momentarily blind

and wordless, might,
I hope, be working
their way back

to each other, mistily
aware of a promise
neither remembers

making—
I will come for you,
I will find you—

calling as crows to their
brethren when they
have lost the beat

of another’s heart:
I am here!
Where are you?

I am here! There,
my friend, are you!
Here we are.