2011 Poems In Wordle

with you

the first time you held me

it was like a house burning

in the night.

and for the first time

the world around me

-illuminated only by fire

seemed black, immense

frightening.

the moon a pale seed

buried in the earth

with no more light, no more substance

than ghosts, than memory.

being with you meant

 understanding being without you.

being without you was unbearable,

cold, immense

black

- a pain illuminated only by fire.

my heart was lost in it

as cool, as distant

as a nameless star.

nothing you could say

could call me back.

nothing could

convince me otherwise.

the flight

I left you today, love

though perhaps you didn’t notice.

I never left my bench,

never transgressed the garden wall.

still – for a moment – I was

as far from you as the first star.

I planned my escape as carefully

- as painstakingly – as any prisoner.

I crafted my wings from your stolen letters,

from clips and tape left unnoticed on the desk.

I hid my rings (they were too heavy)

in my shoe at the toe

like the mouse we once found

nesting there.

I took off my clothes and opened my chest

(how the rusted hinge cried out!

- I thought for certain

you would hear it).

I wanted to leave behind my heart (it was too heavy),

like the rings, like the shoes, freed for flight

but there was no place safe to hide it.

nor would the door – opened - close again

 like a broken shutter

vulnerable, caught by the wind.

did you notice?

did you hear?

I will tell you, love

(though you did not ask me

-though you found my creased wings

torn and folded in the bin)

why did I return?

always I the felt the weight of my heart in flight

the cold and

the stars and the hazy purple twilight

swirling in my open chest

and I was afraid.

I saw your face – as distant from me as the last star

and then . . .

something drew me back.

something drew me back.

the cardinals

I put it all in words,

but these were like the seeds

lost in the snow at our feet.

I watched the birds hunt for them,

each one a red plumaged pulse

breaking raggedly

frail, desperate, determined

against the cold.

what is it they say? even the birds

are clothed and warmed by some miracle.

you sat beside me

and in our nearest thoughts,

our close silence -each of us counting

-each of us wondering

-each of us imagining,

their wild and windswept homes,

their frail shelters in the night - each only big enough for one

and the soundless, stealing cold.

you took my hand and I blushed,

imagining the feel of their down, their hidden softness.

I never found my words, never spoke them

though I had written them on placards, on buildings, on my heart

-frail

- hopeful

-sustenance

mere words.

like the birds without shelter, without worry,

I didn’t need them.

all love is stolen

do you remember my grandmother’s wood?

-the hanging snake vines that formed swings for two,

the pale, upturned roots near the shore,

that made strange, magical palaces?

we called it her wood – though in truth it never was.

we raced through the neighbor’s field to get there

-how furious he would have been to know

that we had crushed a single tender plant.

you held aside the barbed wire,

and I crawled through,

my hair caught, and you pulled it so roughly free

that I cried.

all love is stolen

-you taught me that.

it moves through our heart like a fever

and then it is gone,

no more our own than the amber moon

passing through a cloud.

like children we are freed only for the planting and the harvest.

in the winter we will be called back

to stand in line.

only try love

If I came and I found you empty,

I would remind you, love, of the simplest things

-childish things:

mushroom caps, starflowers and smooth white stones,

the moss castles you used to build me.

If I came and I found you empty,

I would remind you, love, of my grandmother’s wood and

the great, magnificent tree – ruined, split by lighting,

covered in vines and violets

-do you remember?

Do you remember these childish things?

Try, love, simply try.

There was just enough room

for me to crawl inside, to peek out

to touch fingers, to whisper stories.

If I came and I found you empty, love

I would beg you to take me in your arms

and like that wrecked and ruined palace

to close me inside yourself.

careless

I tried to be careless with you today

-to speak your name

as if it hardly mattered to the woman at the market

-to linger too long among strangers

-to be late – to keep you waiting

the way I would have before

this love that came to unbind me.

But I had forgotten your touch.

-never still, always moving like water,

always trying to find its way in,

wave after wave crashing over me,

sweeping me under

-mast broken, bow snapped

butchered.

Oh, I had forgotten your touch!

sails torn, bleeding

its mere memory

wrecked me completely.

it never mattered

I wonder how these days

I can read an entire book

and nothing - not a single word of it

will call you to mind.

everything used to answer

to your name, love.

I lie in bed,

I stand in line,

I stir sweetness into tea,

all these plain tasks empty me.

once I wrote you the saddest lines.

I kept them near me

-you would laugh if you knew how close.

always – as if paper and ink mattered.

always - as if folded and crumpled in pockets

you made them matter.

it never mattered.

folded in the pages of a book

-one of many on my shelves

I am sure the words are still there.

even they grow faint with time.

i would have helped you

I went out today.

I took the path through the orchard

-the apples, untended

had fallen, softened

red and ruined

to the ground.

I went out today.

I took the path through the pine wood

-to either side, tangled in the boughs

was darkness,

needles and broken compasses.

I thought of wild things

of madness.

I went out today, looking for you.

if you had told me, love

-if you had told me instead of stealing away,

if you had told me something was missing,

I would have risen from my bed

I would have put on my watch and my coat

I would have drawn the bolt

and I would have gone out into the cold world with you.

little boy, if you had told me something was missing

I would have helped you find it.