Knowing

I knew you before I knew you
as the morning glory knows the dawn
approaching in the gloom of night
 
I knew you before I knew how
to know without thinking or reason
how to see without the gift of sight
 
This kind of knowing, so easy to miss,
is what precedes every discovery
an answer to a question yet to be asked
a sudden flash of insight not subject to thought
 
I too might have missed you that day
but for a glimpse of peripheral vision
(what other vision is there in the dark?)
a re-cognition, a déjà vu never before seen,
that made me turn on my heel and see
what I didn’t know I sought ––
You
standing by the door
smiling an invitation
to cross a threshold and join
your expedition of discovery.
 
You are my tera cognita now
and I your cartographer
every mound, every crevice of your terrain
I have explored, triangulated, and mapped
and still I get lost in you
and have to discover you anew each day
kissing you for the first time
getting to know you again and again
like the sand losing itself as if for
the first time in each new wave
…
and yet, as we continue
to echolocate through life
we must in the end concur
that neither you nor I nor we
could ever truly know
who the hell we are or were.