Rose Petals Fall

One of the loneliest aspects of time is transience. Time passes and takes everything away … But the opposite is also true when you are having a lovely time and are really happy; you are with the person you love … On such a perfect evening or day, you secretly say to your heart, God I wish this could continue forever … Even Faust begged the moment to stay … ‘Linger awhile, for you are so beautiful.’

Anam Cara, John O’Donohue

*****

(Rose petals fall)

Brushed by the hand
of a goddess in her garden,
a chalice of life and longing
among her chosen flowers–
by chance,
or by fate,
or by fortune,
or by whim,
or by caprice,
the rose petals fall
.

(one by one)

The days and I are one fabric–
the years too long,
to encompass in a thought,
to hold in the hand,
unless I roll them all up like a bolt,
but then the old layered memories are gone,
not gone, but hidden,
in dusty, jewel-encrusted boxes,
in brittle photographs,
in words scrawled on napkins,
in rooms no longer visited.
Where is the laughter? Where is the tea?
The servants have fled
for emerald pastures.
They left without a sound
without a footfall in the night
to mark their secret passage.

(two by two)

But then there was you
and I held your petaled hand,
your petaled heart–
let my heart not fall without you.

To say that I love you.
To say it!
The sound flickers like a candle,
carried in the night,

searching from room to room
from unshuttered window to door unhinged,
from creaky floor to startled misstep,
a votive offering to the moon,
“See here, moon! Add this light to your light!
I have light to give!”

Please dearest,
Let my heart not fall without you.

If I Could

If I could reach
into the past
and pluck a petal
from that ghostly flower
I’d pull you back
and tell you that I loved you.

In your dying hours
I saw that you tried
to do the things you loved
in life, but you were so tired.

Death hung around your neck
and pulled your head down
so that all you could do
was stare into the dim morning—
dimmer now,
grayer now.
You crawled into the bitter end
with all the life left to you.

I pluck you from the past, dear one
and make you whole again.

Hummingbird

But because truly, being here is so much;
because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world,
which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.

Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth,
seems beyond undoing.

Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Ninth Duino Elegy

*****

It hovered for two moments, even three.
No, not it … he, or she
came to greet us, greet you, greet me.
I could not name her, nor you him.
His wings blurred, her body delicate.
If he could smile … well, perhaps she did.

Perhaps not at us,
but at the child between us,
The child we planted,
root of you, root of me.
Two months old and nimbus gold,
a sapling born of longing,
to taste the sun’s wake,
to dance in the moon’s glow,
to flower in spring,
to lie like a lizard,
lazy thoughts that
fill the empty corners
of desert summer days,
to shed old skin in autumn,
dormant bones in frozen snows,
to be known and to know,
to be heard and to listen,
to love without regret,
to live if only once.

“Only once!” I heard
the hummingbird say,

then he turned,
and she flew away.

And Now You Know

And now you know
That I have thought, “Will you still love me?”
Once you have seen
my all-too-human frailty
and how I often feel
that this bag of bones and blood
is not worth the touch of your hand
and the parting of your lips
and the words that pour forth from them
like a life-giving river …

But it seems that you do
and now life without you
is unimaginable.

You and I

Starving for your ripeness,
the winepress of your lips,
the blood of your river,
the root of your tree,
the lost highways you traveled by,
the miles of imagined miles,
the shadow of a hungry hawk circling a dry summer day
in late July
carried by the carrion of days
,
heaped upon a pile
and counted like a pauper’s coins.

Stories from your lips
will fill my soul
as bread and water
to a dying man,
days alone
on the scorched desert sand,
torn savagely from his home.

The train head bellowed not once in the night,
so mourned it of your absence.

You and I,
the fountain of our delightful alchemy.
You: god-born naiad of Mount Helicon, come home
bearing August’s gladiolus.
I: shepherd to your flock
of antinomian desires.


Fun fact: Antinomianism is any view which rejects laws or legalism and is against moral, religious or social norms. The term has both religious and secular meanings. Outside of Christianity, the term is used in Buddhism and Hinduism, and denote transgressive aspects of Vajrayana and Hindu Tantra, which include sexual elements.

Dear and Far

Dear and far,
far have you flown,
flown to the East,
East and to the sea …

Stretched so thin are you and I,
phantoms disarranged on either side
of this veil of miles immeasured.

But still the still sky
is lit with your fires.
Not by some trick of conjuring,
do I force you into fullness,
to taste you, to pluck your ripeness
from the winding vine,
but by the wine of sheer and unsated
need.

By need do you flower–
fleshly petals, red-lipped stigma,
tongue of nectar.
Tend to my longing!
For gold is only copper
to your closeness.

How Deep Our Hearts Have Grown

How deep our hearts have grown,
like roots into the Earth,
like boughs into the sky;
Love never have I known
but for your arms in mine
entwined,
our two suns
burning one into the other.

The color, at times, like Kandinsky’s yellow,
or his blue, at total rest,
toward bliss
even disembodiment–
so entangled are we
at such moments.

I Studied Your Face

My eyes, waters warm of moonlight,
swept your face over, worn a sweetness smooth,
while you softly slept
through the hallowed night,
and I both laughed and wept.

Laughed for joy,
for longing wept,
your face I studied
as you slept.

Ocean bed, slow tide body
waves softly rolled and washed over mine,
fine sand crystals wet,
upon the cliff’s scalloped edge,
as I laughed and wept.

Your dune-white shoulder bare,
a hundred planted kisses,
preceded each I breathed the words, “I love you,”
all the while as you slept.
All the while I laughed and wept.

I Hear You

I hear you.
Do you hear me?
My lament and my devotion?
You are breathless and nocturnal
in a room next to mine.
Before the valley door towers the guard of Janus.
He divides our worlds two from one.

But I am an owl.
And I am a hawk.
And I am a bird of love.
I am a fire liminal.
No mask shall come between us.

You need not knock.
I am a sail against the western wind.
We are one heart, one face–
One winged love that does the gate unhinge.


Fun Facts: A liminal deity is a god or goddess in mythology who presides over thresholds, gates, or doorways; “a crosser of boundaries.”
A mask with two faces is called a Janus mask, after an ancient god who had two faces and who guarded over doorways.