I Am Encouraged

When I am an old lady and I have worn through the rubber soles of my practical shoes, so that the rubies I placed in there drag across the linoleum, with their scratchy little murmurs, I will remember that you encouraged me to scream into the howling wind and to splash in the raging river – that you said even if the wind does not hear you holler and the river does not feel your stir – you would – that you would be listening, and you would notice the little drops of water in  the air, before they returned to the source, and that you would read my tiny scratches, my little murmurs, my rubies on linoleum, all the same.