It feels just as grey as the grey rain
That the rain shall still be here
when I am gone
That the birds that cower in the trees
shall be here as well when I am gone
For each rain is the same rain
each bird the same bird
Building blocks of the perennial
“Rainy day with bird” tableau
And every observer is the same observer
as it watches the rain fall
from behind a pane of glass
There are endless iterations
of watchers, feathers and droplets
But merely a single flicker
of our particular soul
A miraculous self seeing the world
in a particular manner
Loving, hating other miracles
in a particular way
At the particular end
of a miraculous journey

Victor Alejandro Wainer
Victoria, BC
August 30th,2025

Like broken homemade gifts,
meaningful once to us,
while we remembered why,
or the pretty pebbles
we gathered everywhere we went
to remind us of happy times,
shiny while wet from the ocean,
now dry and dull,
all jumbled in a pile, abandoned
with other mixed-up memories
in a long-forgotten drawer,
time took our love story
and crumbled it between its fingers.
It was no more the shiny toy, the pearl
that adorned our night and days
and made life worth the hassle.
It now is an atherosclerotic love
naked, loud, and impossible to ignore,
unavoidably alive and still,
a poor excuse for a dedicated life.
That we cling to it is human
– it is the raft, the ledge, the hand.
That we learn to love through it
is the proof of our commitment.
But at the end, when we are alone,
or better said: when we are aware
as never before of being alone,
is this badge of honor made of gold or paper?
Still, we get in bed together,
as every night, and as every night
my hands depart in search of you
– my hands that have learnt to touch you
with a discernment that only comes
from decades of practice and good will –
and when they find the holy heat
that marks the boundary
between you and the universe
I briefly understand
and I can briefly be
at peace with myself.