Stepping

I’m thinking of that first 

night we stayed in your bed 

until two am

and you walked me to my 

car and I tripped going down the

front steps to the driveway,

the stairs uneven and my gait 

unsteady. You were two steps 

behind – a kind

figure following me down,

listening to me chatter on,

watching me stumble in the dark,

asking if I was ok.

I’m thinking of that now,

somehow chattering 

away at you still.

Do you think less of me

if I tell you: I imagine you

still close behind, a gentle

shadow in the 

unseeable landscape,

watching and listening

as I take another wobbly step

down - away from that night,

away from your bed

and your late night kindnesses,

and into my own 

unfamiliar and necessary deep?

Pattern

You are every wounded bird

I have ever loved.

Your heart is your broken wing,

and I am tactile, so I must touch.

Your song is your broken heart,

and I can hear you, so I must sing.

Your flight is my destiny,

and we fall in, formed. It's inevitable. 

Passage

I want

you

to take me

to a place

remote

woody

and wild

a place 

of horizon

and shoreline

and hope

I can see

how I

might

open

there 

with-you

in-you

for-you

in the wide

space

of silence and 

hum

of birds

and sky

and hearts

unfolded

and free.

Feast

He cannot make
a place in his heart for you.

You taste the tart and
true weight of that,

roll it about in

your mouth,

under your tongue,
against your cheek.

The tangy juices make you
salivate,

yet no wrenching claw of despair
grips your being,

no deep pit of agony
swallows you whole. Rather -

this luscious, bittersweet,
golden moment stretches across

a field of all your
moments; so full,

so ripe - you
grab it, and feast.

Seasons

You look at the calendar.

You are surprised.

It is September 6. 

You haven’t been paying 

attention, you guess.  At
least not in the way that 

knows the day, has it seeped 

and steeped in your being, and 

in the way you go about things.

This happens, you surmise, 

when you spend day after
day in an office, staring at a
screen, moving in and out through

rushed and time-bound increments.

You forget to pay attention, to
breathe, to lift your eyes, open your
heart and feel the day.

And then those days, those months, 

those seasons just roll on through, and 

you have to think back: 

June was hopeful. July difficult. 

In August we ended. And now 

September is just beginning,
with empty calendar days and
hours approaching and asking
you to live, finally, 

just live.

Compass

I want 

to lie with you

in the underside.

the belly.

taken by
our appetites.

round and soft and billowy.

wind on the surface

permeates
the deepest hollows.

we will find

our true

true north.