winter love

your kisses were so gentle

that I mistook them

for the snow falling softly,

decorating the branches.

I mistook your touch for the wind

moving through the bare trees.

you were the winter itself

stealing upon me.

how restful it is,

to be in your arms.

how calm it is

like stone.

your heart

is a pale moon.

you aren’t afraid

of the night pressing

on our skin

of silent fields.

you brought me the love

that makes spring possible.

let me confess

let me confess

my humble love

grown of earth

no flower

more practical sustenance

a spear of corn

no red color

(except at the root)

pale yellow

like butter

kernels pressed

tight together, like

baby’s toes

slender body

wrapped in

translucent silk

paper husk

let me confess

my humble love

let me nourish you

like all good things

born green

born of earth

the flight

I made my bed beside the railroad tracks

laying down as the deer

in their wild and grassy places

and folded my hands

as if in prayer.

I made my bed beside the white clay road

banished from your call

as lost as any dog.

who can count the ways

I was unmade that night?

still the wheels of the road

rumbled close

always turning

like mother to child.

the train cried.

I felt its vibration in the earth.

it was no more than

the nighthawks passing over me,

like smoke rising.

the lights of the cars on the highway

to my drowning eyes

seemed globes – spirits

rising to heaven

wait, I cried - wait

can you blame me?

there was nothing left of me but tears

but words whispered in prayer.

the price

others may write about eyes

about glances

what would I know of this?

-my sight extinguished at his touch

his hair running though my hand like water,

his lips like currents

pulling me deeper

drowning me in his breath.

in the morning – departing

buttoning clothes

like children gathering slippery stones

from the riverbank,

shoving sandy, never clean feet into shoes,

trembling, suddenly cold.

 I thought I knew what this would cost me

- I should have known what this would cost me.

I should have known

love isn’t a price you pay only once.

the kiss

your kiss is like a torn cloth

it fits against the sky like a church spire

alone in a prairie of winter.

your touch runs like a furrowed field,

line beside line, unbroken

if there had been a moment

for breathing,

for asking,

I would have told you, love

that I’d pay any price

-my heart knows its color

my blood, my being

knows its name.

the return

kiss me, love, and then return
-while you are gone my heart will be
like a furrowed field in winter
dusted in snow
lines of black
lines of white.
kiss me, love, and then return
-until you do, everything will be
as if only in passing,
flocks of birds alighting on a shorn field
for a moment a seed,
a drink, rest
then a cloud ever changing, ever migrating
bird by bird a whole, falling apart.
a kiss my love
-then while you are gone
I’ll imagine only your sweet return.

the compass

they tell me there are directions
– north, west up,
down and left.
but how can this be?
when no matter where I turn
I am always moving toward you.
there are maps that only the heart can read.
it will tell you that sometimes even the shortest distances
are immeasurable, are too much.
no one praises a heart of stone,
but I must confess that mine is granite,
lead and quartz,
weighted, heavy.
my being is always falling in your gravity
toward the earth, your touch
your heart.

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.