you were flooding, a black rose rising
driving out on the same road for hours
in the moment, in your body, saying
"Where was I? I was in here somewhere, in this
shell, but where? Was I somewhere safe or was I
terrorizing myself in some lonely, dark well?"
and you said there is nothing left, and put
perfume on a tissue, lotion on a pillow
so to smell something different
drew a sparrow in a curly, sturdy tree
ate cold pudding, sipped Coke from a straw
took the screen down and washed the window
I simultaneously forget and remember to forget
like Christ shedding the skin from his heart
writing now in a new way unused to pain
I woke late to a robin, your soul, singing
got out as the mountain turned pink
spent an hour alone in your words
2011
Your poem shows me what is beautifully mysterious between two people. I see the connection and it is not solid like two pieces of wood pressed together but loosely winding like a rope down the limb of a tree. Sometimes entwined and other times frayed. Beautiful images -- they really work to create a vision in my mind. XO
ReplyDeleteThank you for saying. This one was very special for me, the first that draws from our old journals in the light of present reality, like pulling up cool water from a dark well to quench today's thirst for depth. Those days are buried like rings inside a tree, yet they hold out clues, and I want to climb those branches in a new way using poetry as the rope, to see how it feels to be sitting up there, looking at it all from a new perspective.
ReplyDeleteBy that I mean I feel more suited now to appreciate the mystery without looking for easy answers. I also feel closer to you in the process, less afraid of the terrors and separations that swept me away at the time. I hope to keep up this practice, re-integrating the best years of my life from the perspective of each new day, which continues to be the best ever :)
How I could not love you.
ReplyDelete