Children of Autumn (2013)

We live as the children of autumn’s first snow,
Brought forth in the warmth of the waning glow
Of summer, accustomed to bounty and wealth.
But the seasons are changing: silent, with stealth
The cold is approaching, the riches we clasp
Are rotting away in our weakening grasp.
The summer expires with a sigh and a gasp,
And the dirges of winter begin to blow.

Over the Mountains (2013)

My love has wandered far away,
Over the mountains and over the sea,
So far, so far, I cannot say
If ever he will homeward stray,
If ever he’ll return to me.

He left upon an autumn eve,
The leaves of summer falling fast
About us.  I did not believe
That he would go; I did not grieve:
I knew he would return at last.

I knew he loved me more than life,
That we were bound by destiny,
Through all the suffering and the strife,
To join ourselves as man and wife
From now until eternity.

But I did not understand how time
Can swiftly, suddenly, pass us by,
As clouds may thin from their billowy prime,
And the sun complete its downward climb,
While a person turns away her eye.

You looked at me with love and grief.
I did not understand you then;
My thoughts were filled with disbelief.
Now in my hand is a blackened leaf,
And I cannot make it green again.

I cannot make you reappear,
I cannot draw you home to me,
I cannot bring your body near,
Or send my sight across the sheer
White mountains, or the azure sea.

My love, you’ve wandered far away,
Over the mountains and over the sea;
So far, so far, but do not stay,
Come back again, I hope and pray;
Return the love that’s lost to me.

Vision (2013)

Let us dance down the street with a waltz in our feet
And a song of delight in our hearts;
And if people should stare, we will laugh and not care,
For it’s now that our life truly starts.

There’s a vision I’ve seen, it’s as pleasant, serene,
And perfected as any can be:
And it tells of a place, where a soul can find grace
And the answers to life’s mystery.

Though I don’t know the way through the night and the day,
For I’ve only seen half of the dream,
I know this is true: what is missing is you:
For I saw you asleep by a stream,

Whose waters soft flowed by the side of a road
That was lined with the lilies of spring,
While a voice in the air said I should not despair,
For my task was to teach you to sing.

And that once you discovered all the treasures you’d covered
With layers of dry, sterile sand,
Your soul, long forlorn, would be quickly reborn
And freely you’d reach for my hand.

Then rising, awake, to the road we would take,
And follow it on to the end,
For together the way, through the night and the day
Would be clear as the smile of a friend.

This was the dream that I saw like the gleam
Of a star that falls swiftly in flame;
But with power it shone, so although it was gone
In a moment, I was not the same.

So come with me maid, and awake from the shade
That has kept you away from the sun;
Your soul kindles bright in your eyes, and the sight
Of your body makes time swiftly run.

We’ll dance through the night, with the stars shining bright
When the moon is the queen of the sky,
We will dance by the ray of the king of the day,
As he beams with his life-giving eye.

We will seek out the fountain on top of the mountain
Where the Muses are said to reside,
And there, in that place, as our bodies embrace
They’ll appear and sit down at our side.

Beside that cool spring, they will teach us to sing
Of the mysteries and truths they would share:
Of the wisdom of love and of realms high above,
While the sunlight shines rich on our hair.

And when they are gone, we will sleep on the lawn
That lays thick by the fountain in peace;
We will wake so refreshed, and so perfectly blessed,
That our joy and our love will not cease.

So come with me maid, and awake from the shade
That has kept you away from the sun;
Your soul kindles bright in your eyes, and the sight
Of your body makes time swiftly run.

Let us dance down the street with a waltz in our feet
And a song of delight in our hearts;
And if people should stare, we will laugh and not care,
For it’s now that our life truly starts.

Something More (2013)

You hear it, and now you’ll hear it for all time:
The song that woke a yearning in your soul,
Transforming the prose of life into the rhyme
Of lyrical love, a love to make you whole.
How few of us hear it – the call to something more:
It whispers through the winds that pass you on
Their way to some exotic, distant shore
You’ve seen in your dreams.  It flashes with the dawn
Of each new day, in each new ray that lights
With warmth upon the cool and slumbering earth,
Revealing the inexhaustible delights
That come to those who dance with joy and mirth
Through all the seasons, to the blessed few who strive
For something more, who truly are alive.

Westward (2013)

I stand upon the ocean’s shore
And gaze to the west, where you might be
Wandering the waters of eternity,
The promises that you one time swore
Still echoing in the surge’s roar.

I stand upon the ocean’s shore
And watch for you where sky and sea
Commingle, as once you did with me.
I watch the seabirds westward soar,
Despairing and hoping forevermore.

for a time (2003-04)

if you are lucky in your journey
you will come across a woman,
who stands upon the seashore
wearing only pure white satin,
in her hair are woven flowers
and her eyes are always willing
if you ask.

she will feel more like the ocean
than the texture of a woman,
she will take your hand in mercy,
she will lead you to the garden
of your soul.

should she choose to travel with you
you should be considered lucky,
and if she wants to travel with you
she will show you what can blossom
in your heart.

if you are lucky when you wander
you may come across a woman
who stands upon the seashore
gazing out beyond the ocean,
seeming like an ivory tower
or a graceful mermaid singing
to your eyes.

along some distant seashore
i hope you find that woman
who walks upon the water
wearing only pure white satin.

i hope that she is singing
and i hope that you will listen,
as she will not sing forever,
and her skin will only glisten
for a time.

The Door Beyond (2013)

We stand before the final door
That leads us on from night to day –
A portal to a promised shore,
A chance to find forevermore,
Though neither of us truly know the way.

We tremble at this final door
That leads us by the dragon’s roar,
Beneath the storm king’s jealous sway;
A portal to a promised shore
Beyond the murky, scuttling floor
Of the haunted forest, grim and fey.

But we also stand before this door
Imagining all that we’ll explore!
The treasures we’ll find and steal away!
A portal to a promised shore,
The house of dreams we’ll both adore
Beneath Aurora’s gentle ray.

We stand before the final door
And clasp each other, fore to fore;
We laugh and smile to know someday
We’ll dance upon that promised shore,
Where wine and music interpour
And children’s voices rise in play.

A final breath, we push the door
That leads us on from night to day,
A chance to find forevermore,
The portal to a promised shore,
Trusting that our love will show the way.

Magnificent moment of now (2003)

Thinking thoughts through the thick togetherness
Of our bodies under quilted warmth,
Resting in the comfortable right-formed
Crook of my arm.

Your eyes look up at me
In naked wonder
And crinkle
With a sparkle-joy
Thrill to the base of my spine.

Is it possible two bodies
Could fit together so
Perfectly, such
As jigsaw scattered I
And perfectly formed you?

I think we fit sensibly and fully
In this magnificent moment of now.

But when clock tock time
Of soon and must
Knocks rudely on the door,
Or crawls through a crack
And across the floor,
Or flutters at the window...

You shall go
And I shall stay
(watching you through my window),
And think of when,
In a future now,
We will under a quilted softness
Together ourselves
For another most wonderful while of time.

Invocation (2013)

Sing through me, goddess!  My muse, my sacred source
Of inspiration, sing!  Sing of ecstasy!
Sing of her love, her heart, her mystery!
Sing of passion, her longing eyes, the primal force
Of her kiss, the way these memories of her course
Through my blood with such furious energy!

Sing, goddess!  Sing, and I will surely be
Your lyre, your voice, until my own falls hoarse.

I am Orpheus, returned from the Stygian sea,
And my loveliest lives! She lives, and she is mine!
So sing, goddess, sing of my victory!
Most worthy to be loved, and forever mine!
I kissed her, I woke her, she gave herself to me,
So sing goddess!  Amabilissima is mine!

The Princess and the Prince (2013)

Look at her, beauty beside the lake:
A princess! Dipping her tender toe
To check the water’s warmth, and – “Oh!
It’s much too cold!”  She can’t go in.

A princess is a tender thing!

The lake has made a cruel mistake
To cause such beauty to shiver and shake!
How cold!  How dreadful! How awful indeed
To make her tremble like a reed!

Oh bitter world, what shall she do?
Look at her, shivering, her hair askew:
Oh wretched girl, oh wicked world!
To ruin the locks that once were curled
So prettily on her pretty head –

And now she wishes she were dead.

“The water’s cold!” she cries aloud.

Her shoulders slump, her head is bowed.

Will anyone save her?  Can something be done?
She attempts it once more – and the lake has won.
She cries out in pain, a cry so steep
It slays the beasts, the bugs that creep,
The fishes deep, the frogs by shore,
Til nothing lives for a mile or more
Around her.  Truly, when they hear her cry,
The birds drop dead from out of the sky.

And so she weeps beside the shore
Until her eyes can weep no more.

And then she sleeps, a ragged mess,
In her tear-and-grass-stained summer dress.

Oh yes, a tragic sight to see:
The epitome of misery.

But then, what luck!  Along there comes
A prince with two opposable thumbs.
He’s had some practice with girls like this.
He knows their wits are hit and miss,
So there’s little hope to save her soul
(Such things being often out of one’s control),
Yet he knows one thing, he can set her free
From her self-inflicted misery.

In one great swoop he plucks her up,
And lifts her chin like a china cup.
He winks at her, she goggles at him.
He whispers, “hey baby, how well do you swim?”
“Oh quite well, indeed!” she perfectly croons
(The first pleasant sound since she murdered the loons).
“Oh good,” he replies, and he tosses her in
Like a sack of potatoes in a granary bin.

She starts to cry out, but she hasn’t the time
To condemn him for such an abominable crime!
Her mouth’s full of water, her hair is a wreck,
And her thoughts are directed at wringing his neck –
But wait!  This is pleasant!  The water’s quite nice!
Refreshing and soothing, its nothing like ice!
“Oh, thank you,” she chirrups to the prince on the shore,
“I don’t want to kill you at all anymore!
The water is lovely, why won’t you come in?
To stay on the shore is a terrible sin!”

The prince winks his eye, and he smiles at the lass,
Who moments ago would have chewed on his ass,
For he knows that such types, when they’re put in their place,
Can be quite lovely girls, full of silence and grace.
So he takes off his shirt, and he takes off his pants:
And thus was begun an enduring romance.

Two Ways (2012)

Two ways exist for the hearts of humankind,
And through my thirty years I’ve known them well –
Known both: known love and its beguiling spell;
Known love so patient, tender, true and kind.
Known suffering as a lover no longer blind,
Who helpless watches the sea storm’s rising swell.
Through thirty years I’ve known these ways most well,
But never, as in you, were they combined.
These ways exist, I think, to stretch the soul
Beyond what we could do upon our own.
We learn our utter frailty, how little control
We ever have, yet find that we have grown –
Yet not for each other.  It was not meant to be,
For dreams are not the same as destiny.

The Gleam (2013)

Have you met them, the ones with the gleam in their eye?
There is something about them that cannot be told:
They live in the world, but they dwell in the sky,
Their bodies decline, but they never grow old.
They suffer like us, and like us they will cry
When the pain is too much, they are cowards and bold;
They are like us except for that gleam in their eye
That tells of a power that nothing can hold.
They are seekers in spite of their many mistakes,
And their faith perseveres through their follies and doubts,
For they trust that no matter the time that it takes
To explore all the infinite possible routes,
They will find it: their path, with the very same gleam
That shines like the stars in their eyes when they dream.

Come With Me (2013)

Come with me, loveliest, come, come with me,
And the path we will journey shall swiftly appear.
Beyond the horizon we both shall be free:

I have seen it in dreams from across the sea
That rings us with sleep when darkness draws near,
So come with me, loveliest, come, come with me

To a place where souls are content just to be
With each other, where in loving their spirits cohere.
Beyond the horizon we both shall be free.

The future is shrouded, but the heart can still see,
And will whisper deep truths in a trusting ear,
So come with me, loveliest, come, come with me.

We only live once, by some mystic decree,
So why not live happily instead of in fear?
Beyond the horizon we both shall be free!

We’ll suffer and sorrow, but together we’ll be,
For nothing else matters as long as you’re near.
Beyond the horizon we both shall be free,
So come with me, loveliest, come, come with me.

Journeys End (2013)

Journeys end and  journeys begin:
My fantasy, now my woe,
And how I wish it were not so –
I wish that you were mine to win!
Visions, instead, of Eden weep from my pen.
Loveliest girl, I proclaim it by all that’s sublime:
Eternity with you would not be too much time.

Gratitude (2013)

I thank you, guardians of my fullest joy,
For teaching me to walk with my destiny,
Protecting and guiding since I was just a boy.
I thank you, guardians of my fullest joy:

I have surely grown old, yet in this man that boy
Will blossom eternal, happy, safe and free.
I thank you, guardians of my fullest joy,
For teaching me to walk with my destiny.

In Memory of Gerald Blacker (2013)

Our lives are spent amid the dark of night:
We cannot see the future or the past,
And even the present’s clarity won’t last
Longer than a breath or a meteor’s flight.

And yet we face the darkness with a light
We find within ourselves – a light as vast
As the universe, and sufficient to outlast
The pain and the anguish, the heartache and the blight.

With what we are given by life we do our best,
And hope along the way that we may meet
A friend or two, with whom we might be blessed
To share that light, in victory and defeat,

To love and be loved, and, as we go to rest,
To say, despite the pain, that life was sweet.

The River (2013)

We dive into the river,
With its waters pure and cold,
To revivify our spirits
And to shed the worn and old.

The river runs forever:
We do not know its source,
We cannot see its ending
And we cannot chart its course –

And yet the river calls us
With an old familiar song:
It sings of our desires
And all for which we long.

It knows us like a mother
Who’s watched us all our days,
Who’s held us in a love embrace
And soothed us with her lays.

We do not know the journey,
Nor the place to which we go,
But if we falter out of fear
Whole worlds we’ll never know.

We’ll never feel our greatest joys,
Nor weep our saddest tears,
And in the end we’ll wonder
At the staleness of the years.

So trust the darkling waters,
And be taken by the swell
Of passion that arises
From a place we cannot tell.

Dive deep into the river,
And take what it would give;
This life was meant for living,
Though we choose how we will live.

Furtive Star (2013)

As lovely as you are – and you truly are –
My eyes have seen something even lovelier yet:
Your beautiful soul, like a distant, furtive star
Elusively gleaming.  You drew me from afar
With the light in your eyes, and that light I can never forget.

Halcyon Dream (2013)

I am seeking a garden behind a wall:
I have seen it but once, in a halcyon dream,
Like that which was before the Fall.
I am seeking a garden behind a wall,

The abode of a woman, fair beyond all,
Who dances and sings by a crystalline stream.
I am seeking a garden behind a wall,
I have seen it, but once, in a halcyon dream.

Lucifer Tongue (2013)

For Lyndon

Beware the man whose acolytes all nod,
But never shake their heads, who live in thrall,
And scrape their knees when he strides into the hall,
Who sanctify the ground that he has trod.

He presumes to be a perfect man – a god!
His servants?  He would obliterate them all
Before admitting that, yes, he too can fall
Like the rest of them, so finite, weak and flawed.

What man or god devours his own spawn
While mouthing words of love?  He sells the young
With a vision of a great and glorious dawn,
Or the end of the world – then speaks of sacrifice.

He charms them with the sweetness of his tongue,
Then from them, with its edge, he cuts his price.

When the Tango Plays (2013)

With many thanks to J. L. for her contributions to this poem.

When the tango plays, the world is swift compressed
To a chilled intake of breath, the sigh of steel
On ice, the rush of blood, and in your breast
The pulsing beat, a rhythm that you feel

In every cell.  As true as can be true
Is this frozen sheet, this song, the electric space
The music fills between the two of you
When the tango plays, and you wait in close embrace.

Now skate!  And feel the wind rush through your hair
Like a tempest, loosed by some primordial god
When the world still moved with magic, charms and prayer,
When the soul was with itself still overawed.

Now skate!  And feel the edges of your blades
Engrave the ice with power, your bodies reach,
Compress, explode, relax: in rainbow shades
Of color you move – poetry without speech.

When the tango plays it takes you out of time
To realms of gold, where music is the air,
Where bodies move as if their limbs were rhyme,
And speak a language passionate and rare;

To realms where all is amplified, and felt
Intensely, synaesthetically as one –
Now skate!  And feel your separate bodies melt
While the tango plays: the dance has just begun.

Stars (2013)

I thank the stars for you, my dearest friend!
For all the treasures you have brought to me,
Your openness, the hand that you extend,
And the love I know you bear, though wordlessly.

So I thank the stars that shine upon my way,
For dark has been the night, but joy is mine;
You guide me, my star, bright herald of the day,
Aglow in the east: with promise and hope you shine.

And I thank the stars for you, and that you came
Into my life!  You opened wide my eyes,
And now the world will never be the same.
The light of your soul has pierced my darkening skies,

So I thank the stars that I should be so blessed
And so fulfilled.  When days were ebbing numb,
My star, my light of evening in the west,
You blazed with the hope of a brave new day to come.

Whispers (2013)

I whisper my secret to the wandering air –

The name of her whom I so long to name:

My lissome love, my beauty past compare.

I whisper my longings to the wandering air:

“Go swift to her, winds, caress her velvet hair,

Breathe kisses, and set her heart aflame!”

I whisper my secret to the wandering air –

The name of her whom I so long to name.

Orient Eyes (2013)

Beware of the girl with the orient eyes
And the body that moves like the sea’s rolling swell:
She will love you and leave you in spite of your cries.

The nightingale sings in the shadows, then flies
To a place we know not, and without a farewell,
So beware of the girl with the orient eyes:

Her smile beguiles the hearts of the wise,
And her song an enthralling, insoluble spell;
She will love you and leave you in spite of your cries.

Her voice will incite you, but the lover who tries
To catch her will find that his life is now hell,
So beware of the girl with the orient eyes:

You cannot attain her, this perilous prize,
She raptures your soul and leaves you a shell;
She will love you and leave you in spite of your cries.

You will seek her and hope with the futile surmise
That she can be won, though the truth I know well:
She has loved me and left me in spite of my cries;
So beware of the girl with the orient eyes.

Too Late (2013)

I wonder if, one day, when you are old
And drowsing in the twilight by the fire,
Your thoughts will turn to times now dead and cold,
Though once they blazed with passion and desire.

I wonder if your thoughts will turn to me,
The songs you wrote, the secret thoughts you kept,
The whispers from your heart of what could be
That came in the darkness, silent as you slept.

I wonder if a part of you still dreams,
Here in the twilight, to whom you would belong,
If waters had flowed by slightly different streams
And with their music carried you along.

I wonder, yes, I wonder every day
At why I came too late to make you stay.

Eternal Return (2013)

I am Orpheus, returned from the paths of the dead,
My soul washed clean by the waters of Lethe:
Now songs, long-stifled within my breast,
Burst forth from my lips with power to breathe.

Winter Dance (2013)

Come, come my love, come dance with me:
The stars shine down upon our way
And by their light our eyes may see
The depth and mystery,
Of the power that we feel but cannot say.

The world is dark, I do not know
What lurks beyond the edge of sight,
But here with you, amid the snow,
How fearlessly we glow!
How powerless the darkness of the night!

Come, come my love, come to my home,
And we shall build a splendid life,
For all these years I chose to roam
Beneath this starry dome
In search of you, my lovely, perfect wife.

Now here you are at last, at last,
With moonlight soft upon your brow;
A gift for which I dared to ask
(And truly unsurpassed!):
Abundant joy, so much does life allow!

So come, my love, come dance with me:
The starlight shines with gentle grace,
The air is still, and we are free
To move in harmony
To winter's song, beneath the moon’s bright face.

Perfectly Right (2013)

For S. G., in response to an observation:
"In a moment everything changed.  The world became friendly."

Everything, suddenly, is perfectly right,
And the glowering world once more is a friend.
Gone is the sorrow, gone is the night:
Everything, suddenly, is perfectly right!

We live in the shadow, but yearn for the light;
We weep and we suffer, but these have their end,
When everything, suddenly, is perfectly right,
And the glowering world once more is a friend.