Everything associated with the heart -
relationship, emotion, passion -
can only be grasped and appreciated with
the tools of religion and poetry.

Thomas Moore¹

I

Arlu read Tuco's letter, puzzled by the somber tone.
He was digging into something he didn't understand yet,
so she let it rest, knowing he would fill her in as he came to know.

She looked up
and out across the hills rolling before her,
sloping to the river and the forest beyond.

One thing unsaid, but clear, was that Tuco missed her.
He needed time with her.

And she with him.

The beginning of knowledge
is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Frank Herbert

II

Tuco reread the note back from Arlu while he waited for her plane to land.
Neither understood the shifts they both felt, but
both knew the need for more time together.

Tuco thought back to another time
when he'd read Thomas Moore and the need for poetry
to understand the heart.
His own heart
more than that of Arlu.

Now he needed poetry
to understand her heart.

And needed to see her movements
and her moods
to discover that
which he does not expect to understand.

Simply to be with
is enough.