There is a Chinese legend that, after a certain age, koi become

dragons and wait in the depths of their pools for the end of time,

a time again their own.

Perhaps because what light there is in January

Comes late and can only lean a little beneath

Pines heavy in the fullness of their shaggy boughs,

Backs to the wind like horses in their winter coats,

My shadow is a shapeless thing as I lean above

The aquarium and the koi nudges its own shadow

Toward me, crawling over the stones carried from

The stream, no longer coming to be fed but out of

The long habit of our care of each other, coming

Now across four years into the time of its becoming.

Gold does not tarnish but what was made of it

Become undone, scales flaking and falling again

To settle among stones, the sheer shimmering fins

Raveling at the edges, torn and tattered lace shawl.

To accept into one's life the keeping of another's

Is to accept too their death, to accommodate their

Passage into it that is both leaving and arrival,

That in some necessary way brings us closer,

Settling into the deepest part of their changing,

Each one, each time, preparing us for our own.