Awakened by Loud Thunder

Sleepless in my bed-
Where are you now, my lover?
Long nights of aching.

The Gentlest Small Thread of Lightning

My heart swells beneath my chest and balloons
the blanket of my warming skin
at the recent sense memory
of your fingers in my hair, your leg beneath my chin,
your hand holding me close as the car
turns corners in the rain,
this warm rain past midnight.

Beneath, the tires turn, but all I know
is your touch on my hair and my shoulder
as, gently, you keep me from falling.

It's very lucky of me, in this cold,
that I have found someone as warm as you.

As I startle at the sound of thunder,
as I close my eyes and dream of sleeping,
I am calmed, am soothed by you,
your touch across my back.

One tire skids, one set of warming hands
moves tirelessly, slow
as water splashes up
against the cracked window.

So bright are you,
the gentlest small thread
of lightning.

Blossom

Have I grown since then,
or is it the flowers by
the long path that have?

Ecclesiastes 8

Life goes on regardless,
cuts Time through and through
with a long sword and removes its heart,
then lets it pass, finding no interest there:
a long, dull ticking sound, crying out
"Hurry!" and "Stop!"

A very good mantra: one footfall
ringing along tree paths.
It does not speed or slow;
a thing that dies without fading.

One Sweet Breath

My body, a good boat

in this life, a sea;

my heart a wide drain,

my intellect a tempestuous wave.

My tongue: the strong rudder

of my soul, a calm cathedral

built upon the mast.

One sweet breath in the doldrums,

like the sound

of billowing canvas.

She Is Fading

I passed by your old
house today, thinking: "Soon, she
will have another."

Only Until I Find You (The Low Roar of Ramparts)

Down from the high castle of my stony intellect,

out from the deep caverns of my ponderous false heart.

I am alive and this bright golden field of my wheat soul is you.

So far removed, with your voice and hands hidden

amongst this multitude of gentle strands,

but only until I find you are we one in the distance.

With God and the thought of your eyes, I am a divine Trinity.

We three are all instead of one until I realize

that these words are the same truth: we simply are.

I am an empty sea in this fortress of my being;

without your light to rise and set with me,

I am the last echo of a beautiful phrase

reverberating off the walls in these,

the caverns of my heart.

Vessels cross me in rippling storms,

yet not one casts a shadow on its way to

some other inlet or bright ocean.

In searching through this field of my soul for you

there is the wholeness

and the insatiable void of God.

I cannot find any lie in life

because there is nothing, nothing to hide.

To find you here is every deep joy that never departs;

there is nowhere else to be.

Down from the high castle of my stony intellect,

out from the deep caverns of my heart to breathe a little;

to enjoy the sound of birdsong like your whispering words,

the taste of truth like your mouth and the touch

of the wind in your hand,

carrying with it the sight of your soft hair

and the scent of your skin past the low roar

of tumbling ramparts.