Little Love Poem

I close my eyes and I see you.
I open my eyes and there you reign.
Above me you utter words that are new to me
And as you sing to me I am dazed by your white teeth
Then comes trembling, rising, falling.

Who are you and why can't I,
Who never fails for words,
Find a way to move my tongue?
You ask who I am.
I am you I say
And I believe myself as I speak.
Touch me, touch you.
How can these things be?

Erase ‘us’ and even the 'you' and 'me'
By what means could I explain to anyone else
That we have become one of God’s tears.
Let me witness and remember this much:
An infant’s hand reaching from its soft bed
Just a slight touch to your cheek
To assure me that you are real.

Wide eyes locked to yours
I extend arms and feet,
Without doubt or shame I lift my voice
To sing, to howl, to dive and rise up.
Taking this moment in its total
I deduce completion in the transient.
Even in flight I can grasp
That we will be here just this once.

I love you.

September, 2003

Empty Church

Silent soft face of a woman shaped from gold leaf
Turns to me from the apse of my church.
But for her I am alone within this stone vault
And feel her presence move in my joints.

Then comes the slicing of sunset
That ignites blue and red stained panes above-
A thin film of glass separating the sun outside
From the dark wood and damp stone here.

I am a boy under knit cap
Wearing round glasses
Hands tucked in the pockets of baggie black pants
Over-sized coat upturned to warm my ears.

I am a man deep in the blue of atonement,
Touched in caverns by spirits who have no voice-
Ancients mingling with youth in this cool quiet,
Pointing to a place where I will be partisan and witness

To an approaching expanse,
Of upheavals unrelenting
And of nights and days without
The safe calm of these stone walls.


January 1, 2010