Night
Oh you are a singular shudder
Across damp maroon sky
Bled low with dying light running her
hennaed heels into lullaby marshlands
As unseen creatures lift their voices
Into raptured sound
There is no comfort here anymore
No belonging in your arms to find succor
We were once two trees growing into each other
With the tug of prophecy and the purity of magnolia
I still see it in others; gentling press of finger tips touching
Beyond romance, a friendship with delightful ovule
Curling around edges like perpetual honeymoon
That was so long ago now, that spoon of honey
Somehow without knowing, my heart grew old
Waiting for change without knowing
Sometimes things must break and be remade
Fashioned from alternate substance when clay
Becomes unwilling and looks away.
I held on even when it stopped making sense
Wanting what may never have existed
Anymore than promise-rings lost in earth, can blossom
Seeing the lovers tonight, fawn in delight
I know their brand of love; from fantasy
And it makes me wonder at what is real?
The value of letting go of certitude and fading
Fading into a dream, from which we rarely wake?
Do women ever fall that deeply, for that long
With other women? Or are they broken by
The legacies of shapes they have never fit?
Because I’ve been searching all of my life
And I still climb into bed alone, still prop my book
On the coverlet and stare out turquoise window
Where Danish roses let off their perfume like lovers
Rubbing soft delight against shifting curtain
As my hair leaches color and my bones sing of
Their perpetual gravity, I would wish to be reached
Through time, and held so tight I broke into seeds
Letting myself imagine, what it must be
To feel wanted, at any age, any turn in the road
How necessary such regard is, in a world of invisiblity
And endless scold… I keen without words like a wolf
Calls her cub home, to the surround of belonging
Listening to night muster her powers beyond
Blackening shadows rousing to violet tinged dance
Maybe if I’d I felt any sense of worth
If it hadn’t been beaten out by myself and others
Drumming histories like quick speared tattoos
I wouldn’t have ended up here, more solitary than when I started
Closing dreams like pressed flowers in unread books
But I won’t try the same way again… not with identical error
Sewn in my parachute, unpicking hand-stitched seams
It’s not fear, it’s a belief nothing changes
For people without love. Therefore when change
Comes, rounding the corner in her big full skirts
She must come willing, from the welcoming center
Of an open heart.
powerful closing lines
I wonder, do we blind ourselves when we search for love or comfort thinking we know what it will look like or how it will be discovered? Might it be like trying to grow some finicky orchid that just keeps wilting and not seeing the wild blossom cracking through the concrete and spreading those big full skirts?
💙
The last five lines really sum this up