Tricia Leines

Think back to a time when you were in an experience that you wanted to remember forever?

Some moments shimmer with such quiet beauty, it’s as if time slows just enough for us to feel nostalgia settle in before the moment has even passed. I find myself wanting to hold onto these fragile instants—tuck them into my heart, linger a little longer in their warmth—even as I know I must let them go.

This poem was born from that space: where presence meets longing, where memory begins forming before the present is even over. And yet, like the idea of quantum entanglement, I sense there’s a part of me that remains forever tied to these moments. They drift into the ethers, yes—but they never die.

Tender Tiny Instant

Nostalgic in the moment

Holding here so close

Steeping in the sweetness

Wanting more the most

Cherishing and grieving

Caught ‘tween now and past

Fractions of the present

Forming memory too fast

Breathe in slow and slower

Suspended, hanging, gone

This tender tiny instant

Floats the starry ethers

What is lost lives on

Tricia Leines