Hello, Goodbye

Reconnecting with other lives.  All around the world lives continue on without me.  Lives that I once knew and think about every day, ones that I've forgotten, that I haven't yet met, that I never will.  I think some of them are my own.  But here in Madison are a few.  People that I once knew everyday.  Familiar laughs and smiles and concerns.  Patterns of thinking, patterns of living, patterns of patterns, patterns of new.  What makes a life different from another?  What happens as it spins away, unmonitored by its past, unknowing of its future?  Does it exist without a point of reference? 

Tonight the stars were clear above our fire on the lake.