Ripened

Life has brought me many lessons of love
and loss, so I know in part to prepare,
although I am much as a ripened grape
ready to be crushed, run juice for new wine

made in the dark of wild silent ferment
where profound affinities are revealed,
just so, crushed by loss, I might substitute
this for that as new love rescues old

together they’ll  find flavor and fervor,
riches inaccessible save by loss
and wonder of love’s self-restoration,
that joins now and then in a single drop

such is a wine aged long in dark barrel
that releases, but part intoxicates