Kissing.

How long must you wait before a kiss?

 

Imagine

The duration

is not a minute,

a week or a month.

 

but, a geological timescale.

 

Not today or tomorrow –

Forever,

or, as good as.

 

That is the speed at which the calcium

in solution

takes

to trickle,

drizzle down

from on high

to lower and lower.

 

The stones can teach us about patience.

 

(None of this will mean much unless you can see the photo on my website – it is of the famous kissing stalactite and stalagmite at the Soreq Caves in the hills outside Jerusalem. It is estimated that they have taken a million years to reach their current level of relational maturity; let’s hope things last.)