Between the Olive and the Archipelago (Letters Carried by Light)

I. The Researcher and the Weaver

He writes from a room where the sea is a wall

white stone, sky-flung, and lined with fig leaves.

Each word he sends tastes faintly of mist

and the dust of half-buried temples.

He does not sign with a name

but with a riddle.

She answers from a rain-wet light,

where the sun bleeds through banana leaves

and the alphabet drips

from thatched roofs of humble homes.

She folds her replies

like offerings into baskets of code.

II. The Invisible Correspondence

They never touched the same book,

yet quoted the same line from memory.

They argued over gods and gravity,

bitterness and bearing,

the angle of a question,

the weight of longing left unsaid.

Across hemispheres,

the calendar sleeps in different robes

but their hours braid

like twin monsoons meeting

in a shared cloud of thought.

III. No Voice, Only Echoes

Messenger chirps at midnight

or is it noon there in the Isles?

They do not know the sound

of each other’s voice,

yet recognize tone

in the rhythm of keystrokes.

Her question ends in a constellation.

His answer comes as a footnote,

anchored in myth and logic.

They do not say good morning,

but rather: What is the shape of truth today?

IV. Liminal Dwellers

He walks the archives, tracing old texts barefoot.

She stands where the river left its trace.

They glimpse each other

like sunlight through papyrus,

or wind

passing between acacia and olive.

In a world of clamor,

they speak in pauses,

in the spaces between each letter.

Never held each other,

yet always reaching

always listening 

Author's Note

To someone very dear, with whom I still hope to share a reunion one day.

Reviews

[Sami Khalil]

Gorgeous to say the least; every stanza carries a deep story of love and romance. To bridge the gap takes hope and a will; the author wishes to do so.
A reunion is needed as your poetry is a union of verse and beauty.
Glad to see you writing.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I love this poem, and it so much reminds me of a relationship I had. She and I were a different kind of close, not really lovers but like this...some contact but mostly just sharing everything with each other...confidants, shelter, we dwelled in each other's minds and hearts...
Constellations and footnotes.
j.

[Belle]

- a connection that exists in the liminal space of unspoken understanding, where the absence of direct contact only strengthens the unseen thread between you and her...

[Belle]

thank you for dropping by, jacob
it is wonderful to be reconnected