We Knew You Meant It

We knew you meant it when you met us,
smiling, eyes the kind of calm
of pioneers
used to scanning
long horizons, crops still sprouting, expectant.

We are here because it was no mistake,
that interchange of yeses, rosary chain of
long-touching, uncertain and unforeseen
answers,
pricks of conscious choice, and still more conscious
folding into small-enough-to-fit
in any suitcase,
catacomb.

Traveling here, spreading out to view
hay bales, fields,
the irrepressible clouds,
we feel we are seeing in your eyes, again,
that quiet question,
will you live?