Years fade like mirages on the edges
Of the autumn afternoon
That feels like summer still at 2
But not at 7.
There is a strange small turning inwardly—
An instinct tugging at the soul—
Perhaps the same one that tells the birds,
“It’s time to go now, time to go.”
Does that song know us too?
Have more fear of death than life
For life unlived breeds fear of death,
And of death you have nought to fear
For life, in living, has its end.
I cannot love you as you are
Any more than I can a star
Whose light crosses the galaxy
Along with many others.
But I can love you as a song that,
Through my open window found
That both my walls and I
Fit somehow in the sound.
When I walk in the door and decide where to go,
I wonder which version of you I will find—
It may be the one with your hands like a cup
Or I may have to find where you’ve wrapped yourself up
So securely, I can’t even feel you.
Or maybe it’s me who becomes different things
When I leave all my shadows behind
To dance out of sight to the music
That hangs in the hallways of your mind.
I saved you a seat
At the back of the room
In my mind where I sit
And look out at the world.
While the floor is quite nice,
I’ve removed all the walls.
We come and we go now
Whenever we please,
Along with the sunshine
And shadows and breezes.
You can talk if you want,
Or if you want to, just be.
And at night I’ll stand guard
While you learn how to fall asleep.
And in your dreams you’ll voyage out
To get lost on the angry seas
And I’ll be like Penelope
Who makes her love a tapestry
Late August leaves its bookmark in
The edges of the forest where,
Before the dusk has nestled in,
The last of summer’s light retreats
And cannot write the understory.
Each season has a start and end,
But seasons haven’t any—
And so it is each time our souls
Embark upon their journeys.
And in your dreams you’ll voyage out
To get lost on the angry seas
And I’ll be like Penelope
Who makes her love a tapestry
When the light goes out
In that city on the hill,
The message will still echo
But the words will come up empty
And the chalice will be spilled.
When the waters break,
The labor pains of the new earth
Will shake the old until it passes on
And becomes new.
The consciousness of those who see this shift
Will split in two.
I remember the rosebush
That climbed up the front porch
And filtered the afternoon sunlight
Onto our laps where it curled like a cat
That was wrapping its tail in its paws for a nap.
I remember the effort
It took to remove the decades old
Underground kingdom of roots
That anchored its visible network of thorns
To the earth where its petals
Would fall one by one
Under foot.
