Cornerstone Reality

"You say you wanna go so we can both be free" -W/As My Girl, Maxwell 


I was cold within, without you, on that forgotten eve, by that lonely lake
As I reflected. And the water reflected the moonlight such that I could almost mistake
Silver light for icy rime, in the waves and my soul; and though not likely in that clime,
Somewhat more plausible than my wasted effort to stop your heart's retreat from mine.
Though, even after this space of time, sure I am that had I decided, heavyhearted, to go wading,
Instead of standing alone on that twilit Autumn/Winter shore lonely, longing, waiting,
Cold for want of Lost-Love's warming embrace, and had lost myself- dark frigid water enlaced-
Then, in that moment, would have been no more or less frozen than since I last kissed your face.

Lure of Emptiness

I shall return to you some other Autumn

When the red leaves fly

And your thoughts and dreams once again

Swirl through the shadows of the mountains

Stirring me from my dust and waking me

From my visions.

And I shall be as a star or comet,

Brightening your sky as I burn

Myself out, throwing off

The shadows of unrest that have

Covered you in my absences.

Be content beloved, I am here only

To build you the crystal palaces

Of your unguarded moments.

This is my totality,

That I am enlaced in your atmosphere

Until the soft rains come

Again, to settle my dust

In the far corners.

I shall return to you some other Autumn,

When brother Summer has fled

And the cool and heavy clouds grow again,

Swirling in the shadows of the mountains,

Shaking the bones of my existence and moving me

Back into your circumference.

And I shall be Hunter’s moon radiant,

Limning your desires as I wane

Back to darkness, banishing  

The shades of unrest that have

Surrounded you in my slumber.

Rest now dearheart, I exist only

To attend your restless dreams,

To protect your unguarded soul.

This is my totality,

That I am enchained to your needs

Until Zephyr’s kiss again

Sweeps my tattered spirit

To the far corners.

Avatars

“There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.”

Sand and Foam

                        Kahlil Gibran

The hours, the days

When my entire universe was encompassed

By you,

Contained within the spell cast

By your eyes, by your smile;

Your field surrounding me like electricity,

Hair like silk, eyes like fire

All attracting me to your density;

This was the beginning of desire.

I was caught

Like starlight in a diamond

Under deep October skies,

Refracted and reflected

In the jewel of your soul until I was burning

With fever for you,

Your touch, even proximity, the only treatment,

Your kiss the only cure.

This Love we share,

Passing in every wind and shadow

Of a Summer’s evening,

Moving in every leaf and root

Of an Autumnal dawn,

Growing, becoming us and more than us,

Something both simple and magnificent.

The soft rains of April and the sweet snowfalls of December,

Changing us in ways we cannot see,

Remaking us in the image of our hearts.

These few, precious moments

When we touch the Infinite,

Resonating with the waves of our Love,

When all the things you are are mine,

When all I ever dreamed is realized in

The briefest glimpse of the faintest contemplation

Of the most minute reflection of your smile in a raindrop.

These silent moments,

That is when our avatars aggregate,

Making us singular, one in each other,                                                       

One with the Sea of Dreams,

One with the laws that made fire and earth.

We move differently,

We are not these people, not these realities,

Not these bodies that house the Eternal in us,

Not the anchor but the ship

And the chain; not Gravity but the worlds it moves

And the space they move through.

We move, we dance, we sing

Like so many stars,

Moving like the promised kiss of Springtime.  

We speak in angels’ glow,

Lighting suns with our expressions of affection,

Creating Life in each other,

Denying the emptiness of separation, of reality,

With every touch, with every word.

I am tangled in our scent,

Drunk from the incense in the spaces

That lie in the corners of our minds,

Filled with the smoke of us,

Blessed by the offering we send up,

In honor of ourselves,

To the Light that bound water and wind

Into the breathless kisses that we share,

Holding each other’s hearts

Under the full January moon.

  

Indian Summer

We ran like the clouds run,

Chasing our shadows across the skin of the world.

And we were gods again,

Lords of all this naturalness,

Racing to outrun the moon.

Time’s face smiled on us and these were ours-

Our days, our nights.

The whole world was these golden days

That stretched between the boundless blue sky

And the sweet liquor of our sweat

.

So we ran,

Ran until we were drunk inhaling Autumn’s promise,

Ran ‘til we passed Summer’s dreams.

And did we sing?

We sang until our throats were raw

And coated with ancestor’s dust.

We’d been granted a reprieve you see,

Surcease from dreams and duties,

A few short hours, here near midnight,

To dive again into piles of red and brown leaves                                     

And to bleed and cry again without consequence.

This was our second chance

And we grabbed it with both hands and ran,

Ran under the sun, ran under the moon

‘Til our hearts must break from the joy of running.

Because we already knew how short summer was,         

These days would be so much sweeter

For their brevity and undeservedness.

We were free again,

Like the leaves falling all around us,

Prisoners of days given unexpected furlough.

And did we drink, did we dance,

Did we love, did we live?

Yes, like they were new to the world.

But all things pass away

And we exist now in twilight

Where the years we spent,

Not for naught, but not for enough, now

Stand between us and Indian Summer

As both bridge and chasm.

Autumn

Autumn distills foggy mornings to jazz

Carrying the swift flow of slowing time,

Heated days and memories now the past,

Just notes left of a sweet Summer’s nighttimes.

Where, gone now,  has all energy then fled?

Taken, with her, from out my reach, my mind,

Ever to be my longing afore bed?

This a lesson serv’ed to me remind

That all days are ever poetry made,

And pain itself by energy designed

As life’s minor key to show love’s cascade.

Take then and drink these ever cooling eves,

When, in silence, does the soul learn and believe