Saturday, October 3, 2009

Talking in Bed


I ask a question about tomorrow
And you go broad in your answer
Nonsense spaced by deeper breathing -
Then you roll on your side and drift.

I am awake long after you sleep.

Tonight I watch your chest rise and fall.
Little twists of street light
Enter through the window blinds
And dance on your unshaven face.

I feel them first before they speak.

The moon slides from one pane to the next
And falls over the window’s edge.
You make sounds and utter dream speak.
Outside, the bus drops off its last night passenger.

Footsteps crunch on pavement gravel.

Listen to the dozens of small voices
Speaking to me in this silent room.
The committee of my mind expanding to confer!
It will be hours yet before sleep comes.

For now, no matter what they say, I will make no promises.

September, 2006

Minor to Major



David’s silver hair, backlit by low sun -
Wisps, somewhat disorganized, reached out
From the top of his head.
It was our moment on that bluff and that bench.
The stroke hadn’t taken him,
But had come close.

I looked him in his large brown eyes
As he spoke of closing in on a bigger truth
Beyond the stories.
“That’s where my faith begins.”

I leaned back and opened myself
To David's story about a singing snake
Who crawled blind through an intestinal path
Buzz-humming the way singing snakes do.

In a flash of genius
The snake transposed his tune from minor to major.
“And then he opened his eyes.”
Emerging to a star-specked, infinite night sky -
Flicking new words of ‘I’ woven into ‘we.’

David grabbed my ear and gave it a gentle twist.
“I’m ready for it to end.”
What he wanted anymore was simple –
A moment like this one
One more day in the warmth of knowing
That simple comes from letting go.

October, 2009