comfortable ache

i've gotten used to the heartbreaks
the semi-frequent reminders of you
now they are a part of my day
the new way my heart beats

love

words
are my paint
limits of reality change
with each
word
&
you move me
like a song
i open my mouth
and
i
 do
not decide
where my voice begins
and when yours ends, or
when the silence
comes.

here’s to opening and upward by ee cummings

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

Mr. & Mrs. James*

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the
landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home
again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting- over and over
announcing your place
in the family of things.

when i am near u

when i am near you
the numbers on streets and clocks
are right

the sound of rain
upon the sidewalk
is a complete refrain
to a childhood melody


at night
the stars burn like candles, when
blown,
bow
and tip
their hats

when i hold you in my mind
the expanse of heavens
dreamed in
forlorn ancient texts
reveal themselves
like a vast, turning sky


&

you,
like desert canyon walls,
are a fountain
waiting for rain.

love is in the present

love is in the present
i hope you can feel it


it's
in the moonlight
dancing with the moths
blowing gently
through
 the  trees

it's by candlelight
on the touch of a lover's kiss
the soft lips

in the musical hum
the wings of a bumblebee
the nectar
of a hummingbird's bill

it's in the private wish
at a sunset glow
in the gift of the sun
the last bursting rays
that return at day

love is in the leaf of a tree
in the air of spring

just a little bud
the blooming delicate petals
(pink pearl blossoms)
closing at first snow

bound in the roots of the forest
digging deeper
like the earthworm
a tunnel into a richer existence

nuzzling in your bosom
a gentle caress

touching
closer, closer, closer

golden honey drops
that

never spoil

like
wine

better with age

a wonder & a beginning

if
a
picture
is
a
thousand words

then
your
      voice     is

uncountable

in-

sur-
mountable


a peak

     and    V-

alley


lush with game
and forests and sheep

you are a mother of all things

&
through
four seasons
you are a newspring
lake

a
deep
water
well

a magic
a power
a force

and though i'll
never understand you
never have you in all your forever

i bid you
the best an anti-eternity can provide

if all the stars are an end
then

you
are
my
  one

beginning

are we enough

are
we
enough

that you can accept my im-perfect devotion,
the derivation of pleasure
from one source

do
we
grow in the spaces between us,
that
we can
contain the domain
that brings up children
or pets

is
the
child
of our love
the next trail
we
walk
down?

apart
together

one story
punctuated
by a separate sided tale
never
the full truth

an ambiguous definition
a meaningless word    

what sounds just right

the music
          that

knows no
boundary      

                        ..?

i found love (&)

i found love &
she looked the other way

nobody told me
nothing equipped me
what could i say?

words of love
futile poems
a holybook
made eternal and banal

uttered to extinction:

timeless words of prophets
make no demand
no command

believed by lovers or dreamers


love
  was
   invented in the hearts of youth

and
  remains
    patented in their posession


it's not the knows-better-than-you elder
it's not the to-tell-you-the-truth elder
not the moral of the story


it's the wise grandma that one-day-says
i felt that, too


if you want to win her
don't tell her words
take her someplace she's never been


but nothing could convince her
no distraction could get her attention
when her eyes gaze on the horizon


so catch up.

everywhere (instantly)

one look
into your eyes

&
you
told me
everything
i needed to know


love
like a drop of blood
in the ocean)

instantly everywhere