Pull—

I know you did not see me then—

Your eyes were missing in the dream.

I only knew that it was you

Because your soul still felt the same.

You did not see me and you slipped

Into a trade wind like a ship

To ride the spinning ocean gyre. 

Sometimes knowing certain truths

Creates an irresistible pull—

I understand because I know you—

A tender conscience in a world

That speaks a different tongue—

Where people think they’re something other

Than the thoughts they entertain,

And then they think no one can see

What they are made of— 

But I digress—

You did not see me and you slipped

Into a trade wind like a ship

To ride the spinning ocean gyre. 

Sometimes knowing certain truths

Creates an irresistible pull— 

Seized

When a soul is seized by a moment of mirth

It contracts to a point every timeline

That spins through its middle, and we’re

Bent double with laughter,

We can’t breathe, we’re after

That moment

When nothing else matters. 

It scatters—

Like people do when the music ends—

It’s like time bends and pretends 

It is the infinite— or worse—

That it succeeds it.

Melody

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?

Spent

 

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

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.

Hallways

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.

The Voyage Out

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