The Tent

The botanical garden, wet,

a Tuesday afternoon, thin rain

slipping down the glass. And yet,

a white tent, stark against the gray. A strain

of imagined music, not quite heard.

It billowed a little, plastic white,

like a lung, breathing out some quiet word

into the heavy air, thin light.

That 'what if' conversation,

all those years ago, almost forgotten.

It settled then, a firm foundation

or maybe a root, slowly rotten.

No tent for us. No white fabric

flapping a nervous welcome.

Just a silence, less dramatic,

more like a slow, steady hum

of something that never began.

The rain keeps falling.

The garden, a blur. A plan

unfurled, then folded, calling

from a distant, other life.